In fitting Tour Championship, Scottie Scheffler shows why 2024 was his year | Golf Channel Podcast

hello and welcome into this edition of the GOL tuna podcast with Rex and lav well in one Fell Swoop Scotty sheffler won the FedEx Cup secured one of the best seasons in the past decade and a half on the PJ tour and all but cemented his case as the PJ Tour player of the year Rex you're on the ground you just heard from Scotty sheffler in his Winner's press conference what was today like for you from your perspective I want to start with and I know everyone loves it when we uh pull back the curtain a little bit and so it's important to keep everyone engaged so Scotty Sheffer teed off on Thursday for the opening round of this event it's important for me to get get all these facts correct because I don't want this to come back he teed off at two o'clock as you're aware but I just want to make sure everyone else is aware and so as I'm walking with that final group at exactly 202 on Thursday he hadn't gotten done with the hole yet I received the following text from one Ryan lavner quote poor Scotty period no chance he wins period moving on I if you look at the totality of the tournament Rex I and I understand he ended up winning by four shots over colum morawa I understand at one point on Sunday he was up by seven shots the two-shot lead that he had entering the Tour Championship evaporated after 15 minutes after the very first hole on Sunday and I'm sure we're going to be getting into this after the shank on the eighth hole of the back-to-back Bogies skot sheffler was just up by two shots with 10 holes to play it was certainly more tense and more dramatic and I think that's a testament uh to Scotty sheffler's consistent Excellence that he was AB pull this out as convincing as it was but this was like the Doomsday scenario that we had talked about ever since the PJ T started the Stagger start that you could win like the hypothetical remember was always like oh let's say a guy wins seven times let's say a guy wins the major championship let's say a guy wins The Players Championship and all he brings into East Lake is a two shot lead that can that can evaporate in a heartbeat whether it's a snipe left out of bounds or a birdie bogey a two- shot swing isander shaay uh on the very first hole of the tournament yes I assume uh I I presume that was a bit premature on my part but I'm nothing if not a hot take artist oh it was the ultimate hot take you asked me my takeaways first and foremost the takeaway was the funniest moment of the Year for me maybe our colleague Mark schel asking Scotty Sheffer to explain what happened on the eighth hole when he hit the quote-unquote shank you've said it now a couple times most golfers recoil at the notion and Scotty Sheffer went into a very lengthy very funny explanation of the science of hitting the shank he explained that the club face is flat and you have this knob where you know the shaft goes into the club face and if you hit it flat of the club face it goes that way but then if you anyway he did he didn't uh he didn't want to talk he didn't want to talk to us he didn't want to talk to our colleagues Rich he was so over it he was so over it go he wants to and I I don't blame him he was certainly a man who looked like he left everything on the golf course and I do want to get into that that certainly that middle part of the round which is fascinating to me when you go from being in man being in full flight doing what he does best and then suddenly he almost hits it out of bounds on seven ends up making bogey hits the shank which apparently the world number one and the Undisputed greatest golfer at the moment hits a lot of these according to him which made me sort of look up and take notice it has something to do with the slope and and how he's coming in and I couldn't tell you exactly how it works out the part that I take away from this is one how spent he is you get an idea of how invested he was to have this happen look he has dismissed how important this is for a long time what he has to do but clearly this had been Nong at him he'd been in this situation before back in 2022 he came into the final round with a six six shot lead and ended up shooting a 73 and finish tied for a second so that was looming over him regardless of everything he's accomplished just not this year but really over the last three years this was something that I think deep down inside meant the world to him that he wanted to finish off the season in style that he wanted to nail the landing and not have anyone's second guess he didn't want to you and I to have the conversation about well maybe Xander he did win the FedEx Cup maybe player of the year should go to him he wanted to do away with all of that nonsense and I'm always so reluctant to do this because it's so patently unfair and it always falls flat but the only comparison to what Scotty Sheffer has done not just this season but really the last three years he's won 13 times over the last three years the only comparison is Tiger Woods and if you start kind of going down the list and you know knocking off check marks it is there are pretty much NE and neck over the course of a threeyear span it's a small sample size to be fair tiger did it for two plus decades and Scotty's done it for three years and I know everyone's gonna say give it a minute bro but it's the only Benchmark for him and that to me is wildly impressive when you hear the likes of Adam Scott and Rory maroy sort of echoed those comments that yep Tiger is the only comp here yeah I mean this is the best three-year stretch on the PJ tour since tiger 06 07 08 was abbreviated obviously because of the the knee surgery and then ' 09 once again I think the best comp right now is 07 for Scotty's season measuring up with a major championship uh just highly impressive I thought this was a fitting finale for Scotty Sher in a lot of ways Rex like I think four shots the spread that he had between him and C CWA was indicative of kind of the the dominant season that he'd had I think four shots was like at minimum what Scotty sheffler should have won this tournament by when you look at the point total that he had for the remaining of the Season what was at 25 consecutive weeks of the FedEx Cup that he had that's the longest in tour history like that should have been a wide margin and it was so I feel like that was fitting I thought two rex that Sunday in particular was sort of a microcosm for Scotty season and when you look at all that has been thrown at him this year whether it was the bulky putter that he overcame at Bill whether it was the achy neck that he had at at the uh Players Championship that he went on to win remember the arrest obviously at vhalla and he still went on to contend at the PGA Championship the shank uh on the eighth hole that cut what was a seven shot uh Advantage into two shots like he has overcome it all over the course of his season and he was able to do it again on Sunday and win the FedEx Cup you mentioned what other players are are uh talking about to you and I'm curious in your conversations with the players like there has to be a sense at this point of like how do we beat this guy like he's the best driver of the golf ball he led the field and stroke gained off the te at a golf course where there was a premium on putting the ball in play and avoiding the Bermuda rough you look at uh his approach play it's the best since Tiger Woods is prime you look at his putting which was maligned up until you know probably earlier this spring he put it all together this week Topson driving third in approach third or fourth in putting like how do you beat this guy it's a legitimate question uh well in two legitimate funny answers I have to admit when we asked Adam Scott how do you beat him he said look I've tried everything he pointed out that over the last few months he switched to Scotty sheffer's golf ball and a lot of the golf clubs that Scotty sheffler is playing just trying to make up ground somehow I think Rory probably had the best answer when and this goes to the idea that Tiger Woods in his prime we're gonna sit here and remember all the highlights right it's making the putt on the 72nd hole at Tory Pines and the histrionics and everything that went into that the chip in at the Masters to beat chrisa Marco like those are the highlights that we always think of but I always go back to when he beat Stuart sink one year at the match play and steuart who's a hockey fan said you know what he plays prevent defense and it was a hockey term and in this particular case he was just talking about he just waits for everyone else to make mistakes like look we all know he's brilliant we know he can do things with the golf ball that we can't and I think that's a really good description of how Scotty chefer plays the game of golf because Roy pointed out we asked him specifically like what do you admire most about his game and he he said look how many rounds that he has with no Bogies he said it's mind-blowing when you look at what he does well it's he doesn't make mistakes that yes he'll shoot two or three under par and he'll just make two or three birdies he won't have to make up the difference and it's interesting that it's something that Rory is obviously struggling with right now he's making those two or three or four or five birdies but also making three or four Bogies to sort of offset that he just plays a Workman likee style of golf that's hard to beat I mean I'm sure if you're if you really sit on that private plane tonight with K morawa and ask him are you aggravated the answer is absolutely yes because Kore Kawa played brilliant golf this week Des spot the world's best player six Strokes which essentially is what he did with the starting stroke system I mean you're already putting yourself way behind you don't have much of a chance but he really gave it an effort as you pointed out got it to two strokes at one point Midway through the round on Sunday and Scotty just did what he always does he makes three straight birdies right around the turn starts building the the lead back up again and I thought the exclamation point for the season was the eagle on 14 I feel like you could almost see everything sort of wash off his back all of the things that you pointed out the cting Wes the neck issue at the player certainly whatever it is that happened at theala all of those things felt like they were in the past at that point yeah colum morawa did win the ghost leader board he will take the gross Championship I think he gets first place world ranking points so KY morawa will be climbing the owgr as well I think it's a great point that you make Rex about tiger and how the flare for the dramatic that tiger had and all of the Highlight re moments I think sort of colored what Tiger's career was known for and that was absolutely snuffing the life out of golf tournaments on the weekend where you know he was going to hit it pin High you know he was going to pick up shots on the par fives you know he was going to turn in a 67 or 68 and continue to build his Advantage methodically uh in in such a a calculated manner that's exactly what Scotty Sheffer does his the Hallmark of his career of of his play is pin High approach shots that and that puts so much more pressure on your opponents when you are essentially not going to be making a mistakes the range of outcomes that's SC sheffler has performance-wise are are so small certainly compared to like a Roy mroy who has such fluctuations in his play from from day to day but but you know exactly what you were going to get from Scotty Sher you're going to get preeminent driving you're going to get uh if not the best iron play that week you're going to get somebody that's in the top five yes his his putting can be a little bit streaky but he has turned that now from what was a a major glaring deficiency into something that might not be a weapon but it's certainly something that he can rely on as he did at the Olympics as he did throughout these FedEx Cup playoffs as he did at the Masters The Players Championship any number of the signature events that he won this year on the PGA tour it's very tiger-like in that sense Rex is that it puts so much more pressure on the opponents to be perfect because Scotty sheer is essentially playing a brand of golf that is as close as you can get well and I want to take the comparison one step further I also go to the idea that Tiger Woods was really good at compartmentalizing we all know what happened off the golf course with him and yet despite or maybe because of all of those things he was still brilliant and look Scotty hasn't had near as much issues with crisis management as Tiger Woods did but you look at what happened at vahalla he shot a 66 on the same morning that he was in a jail cell it's hard to wrap your mind around that and even though he didn't win the PGA Championship I think he ended up finishing tied for eight that shows a level of resilience that is very much tiger-like and you brought up a really good point about his putting and I kind of wrote this earlier in the week that the redesign here East Lake Andrew Green we talked a lot about it during the preview podcast that actually played right into his hands because I kind of broke it down statistically and as some folks Brad fax and and some folks that I trust on this and essentially what it did is because of the firmness of the greens and because they were new and there was some new breaks to it it brought the everybody kind of closer to the middle and essentially it made the best Putters not quite as good as they had been in the past and look we're talking about percentages here and it made Scotty not quite as bad as he was in the past he actually picked up rounds on the field picked up Strokes on the field on the greens for the week all those things added up to exactly what you just said colore CWA played about as close to perfect golf as you could have played on this particular golf course this week given the conditions and he still came up for a Stoke short yeah Scotty shle was last in the field in putting over the course of his history at East Lake the fact that they completely rebuilt the golf course the fact that they do not have sort of that the grain that has been built in there for 100 plus years certainly benefited him and Scotty shler made a buch of putts at this golf course speaking of which Rex what was the main takeaway do you think from the players uh of a of a re a completely rebuilt East Lake again T's Fairways greens bunkers completely redone year over-year what were the players saying I think by and large they were willing to take the Long View because there were certain things that they didn't like we talked earlier in the week about having to do internal out of bounds off the 18th green going into the 10th Fairway it was strange it was not exactly what what you want to do Straight Out Reon designed they had to do the same thing on the sixth and seventh holes those were things that probably should have been thought about before you started tearing down trees but the to their credit the players did not fixate on those things I think Xander chaet probably said it best he would have liked the PGA tour to maybe give this a year to go in and maybe we played this years tour championships somewhere else I don't know where we would end up moving it because you don't want the players to this to be their first experience and them not to like it I I will tell you that most players that we talked to this week were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt let it grow in a year and they feel confident coming back next year the design the elements I think everyone kind of liked what what he did to it otherwise before this year it was very much a mundane all go as far as saying boring layout it's pretty much up and back there's nothing very special to it and it's still in the same footprint but there is character to it it does sort of get your interest now certainly off the tea it makes you make some decisions that weren't there before and especially going into the greens I think the way the 18th hole played this week is probably the best example and Rory was really quick to point this out that when he was finishing up he laid up kind of on purpose and he said when he looked up at the board he was 50 feish from the hole and he was the closest for the day so imagine that when it grows in it's going to be fun yeah I think it's uh worlds apart from what it used to I think this was one of the most monotonous and tired courses on the entire PJ tour it is just so much more interesting now as a layout and I think it'll only get better once it beds in once it grows in uh they couldn't even I I think the PJ tour certainly took it easy in terms of setup this week with the whole locations I don't think the greens were nearly as scary for the players like I think when we talked on the Wednesday like we were thinking that we were going to have pitching wedges that hit the green and bound it over into gnarly Bermuda rough that didn't really uh play out that way I think the P tour is very conscious of where they put it with some feeding slopes as well K more Kawa one again the gross leaderboard at 22 underpar I think that goes to show the a players are adaptable these are the best players in the world they can if you give players two or three days they can figure out a golf course but too I think a very benign PJ tour setup that was trying not to make these players hate it from a golf course design standpoint it's just so much more interesting particularly the green complexes I think with a couple more years it will be great I was screaming Rex when I was watching the the Scotty sheffler press conference uh video stream I was screaming at the camera saying someone asked Scotty after being the number one seed each of the last two years and not getting it done if he thought his performance this week validated the the format in any way or if he still thinks it's a garbage and B needs to be tweaked you covered the tournament was it boring was it garbage does it need to be tweaked was Scotty's dominant convincing win a uh validatory uh checkpoint for the PJ tour uh to be fair he did not say garbage to be accurate he did not say garbage he has called it silly silly on numerous occasions and I tend to agree with that and I do not want to do this podcast we've already done this I you're going to sit here and talk about all the changes they need to make and I'm just going to come back with the idea that okay was it boring was this tournament boring no we just got through we we just spent about a part of 10 minutes if I'm looking at the clock correctly talking about how things did get exciting about halfway through and that was in large part because of colore cow's play combined with some very uncharacteristic Mistakes by Scotty Sheffer however I think it's exactly Fair given the season that he had because we can sit here and talk about what kind of Advantage he should have coming in in should it be two stroke should it be one stroke should it be more because I think some people given what we just said about his year it is unrivaled only by Tiger Woods I mean if you really want to sit down and talk about it maybe he deserved a five stroke lead I don't know but you're you're never going to catch him look the tour is in a lose lose situation when it comes to this event I did not find it boring and I guess I would ask you as if you were at home if you found it boring I and I keep going back to this simple idea that it wasn't that long ago within the span of my career maybe even your career there was a time when both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson would not come to this event that they had no interest after a long year and all they were doing is showing up at one more event that really didn't mean much to them and what the tour has created from that disaster is a tournament that got every single player who's qualified here let's don't overlook that and a lot of money and I would argue some compelling golf during a time of year when you with your homeless shirt on is much more fixated on University of Georgia football than anything else uh I am a FedEx Cup baby uh I started my journalism career a couple years after the FedEx Cup incep Cup baby in 2007 I I like the FedEx Cup I like what it's trying to do no I do not think the Tour Championship has it quite right this year it certainly worked Scotty sheffler was the best year best player all year long he wins the FED I cup that's the first time that has happened since the Stager start system started in in 2019 this is also the first time that the number one seed heading into the playoffs so Scotty Sheffer after the regular season number one seed first time that player has gone on to to win uh the FedEx Cup as well which I think is probably an indictment of the format as well I'd be open to some other tweaks as well it does not seem like PG tour leadership is all that Keen on doing so I do maintain as I maintained after the regular season finale the Windam Championship I thought that if Scotty sheffler did not win this FedEx Cup and if there was some sort a very strange outcome where Keegan Bradley wins the FedEx Cup or as we talked about on Wednesday the the the the Doomsday scenario of ludvic oer when the FedEx Cup without winning a single owgr sanctioned event so far in 2024 had that happened I think the PJ tour could have potentially been compelled to make some changes the fact that Scotty Sheffer is going to be splashed all over their marketing campaign for the 2025 season upcoming I think is validation that it did work you and I Rex will be back probably for an emergency podcast on Tuesday after the picks for the US and international Presidents Cup teams have been finalized with two days until Captain Mike Weir and Captain Jim furick make those selections do you think anything that happened this week at East Lake could sway those two captains in any way and who are you thinking uh is going to be on that team uh I'm doing a breakdown for MBC sports.com golf tonight just on the idea of who helped and hurt their chances here at East Lake and that's always a stretch because I as I pointed out earlier in the week look this is a two-year process and the fact idea that it came down to some sort of 72 whole qualifier this week is just ridiculous but I think Jim furck is going to look at form and so I think Russell Henley probably did went a long way to help himself I think he was probably going to be a pick anyway if not if he was borderline before I don't think anything he did this week certainly finishing with an eagle is going to give the the captain something to look at I think JT gave him something to look at to be honest with you simply based on the IDE very well played very well he played very well and he was in a position where he hadn't played well in the playoffs and he just barely made it into East Lake and you could have made an argument that maybe since Jordan SM wasn't going to be on the team those two you don't have that natural pairing now maybe it's it's time to move on from JT not saying that he's not going to play on another team but I think you have to go all the way down to number 18 or 19 on the list if I'm not mistaken if you're going to pick Thomas so I I think at the top it's going to be the same and we talked about this a little bit I think Sam Burns is going to be pretty much a lock when you look at at that uh uh I think you made a really really good argument for some other players coming down the stretch I am going to be curious because when I talked to Jim furick last week he made it clear he's not a big analytics guy so he's not digging into the stats oh gosh oh gosh he said he kind of looks at guts and the guys that want to be in that Arena and in my mind that that's got Brian Harmon that's got Russell Henley written all over it I know you have made the argument and I think it's a legitimate argument that Nick Dunlap should be considered the problem there is you're Rex if if Jim fck is not paying attention to analytics I highly doubt he is considering Nick Dunlap for this team although he should be no because I I asked Nick I asked the captain specifically about Nick Dunlap and certainly he's on his radar that the fact that he didn't get any points for the American Express win should factor into this at the very least create a list that does include those points and just see where he is just based on on that idea there's nothing wrong with bringing in rookies and I think it's going to be a relatively young team based on kind of the model that you look at the other side of the coin is Mike Weir and no I don't think anything changed I mean he only had two players were sort of right there on that bubble who were playing this week Taylor pendrith being the one that would stand out my guess is the Canadian Mike we is going to pick as many Canadians as he possibly can to play in the President's Cup in Canada that's the simplest analysis I have yeah I almost think that Mike Weir could go seven through 12 on this list Cory Connor just missed out an automatic qualifying spot obviously Canadian he's going to be on that team Cam Davis won an event on the PJ tour this summer Min W Le an explosive young player he' be making his President's Cup debut I think could inject some sort of that Kim type energy Christian bazen how has had a nice season play made it all the way to East Lake has played in the President's Cup before Taylor pendrith as you mentioned had himself a nice week finished inside the top 15 a Canadian as well he's going to have a decision do you take Nick Taylor do you take Adam hadwin or do you take McKenzie Hughes with that final kick that is going to be uh I think it's going to be a three for one and so that is going to be an very undesirable position for Mike Weir to be and he's going to be after to making some difficult phone calls I also think Rex the more Canadians you put on the team the more pressure that heaps on them because you know they're the the home crowd's going to be behind them you know it's going to be the most pressure they've faced in their entire careers uh to this point I almost think that that could backfire for the international team for the US I think this is uh going to be very complicated for for Jim furick as well and I'm curious what you think about here so Sam Burns lock Tony fow lock I would actually put Russell Henley now in that category of a lock top 10 in both summer opens top five finish at the FedEx Cup great iron player great putter he deserves kind of like that Billy horel Kevin kizner roll a couple years ago at Quail Hollow I think he'll be making his team debut in sort of Latter stages of his career as well at the age of 35 I would put Justin Thomas on that team as well a match play specialist and has is coming off a good week here at East Lake has also played well in a couple of big tournaments this year at Signature Events or the major championships then I think you can go in any direction I would not put Max hom on this team he did not make it all the way to East Lake is having some sort of driver issue that needs to be sorted out I would put Ox batia if you're planning for the future 21 years old a winner on the PJ tour this year uh I I think he deserves a spot on that team that's five then you can go a Keegan Bradley then you can go a billy horel obviously I've made my case for Nick Dunlap and I think he should be on that us team as well Keegan Bradley did not help himself this week Rex shot just two underpar said he was dog tired afterward said he's had conversations with Jim furick but he does not particularly know which way he's leaning I would not blow up my plans if I'm Jim furi that you've had for three or four months based on one tournament at altitude in a 50-man field keep ke Bradley in the back room as the assistant captain that being said I'm not sure we will go that direction all right that is going to do it for this edition of the Golf Channel podcast with Rex and lab Rex has plenty to write about on Sunday at East Lake not just ra up Scotty shuffler season but also uh stay tuned for that President cup breakdown Rex and I will be on golf today on Tuesday breaking down the pcks and then we will do an emergency podcast we will go dive in even further uh discussion about those picks and preview the action at Royal Montreal it has been a fun season on the PGA tour capped of course by Scotty sheffer's dominant Victory appreciate you guys tagging along each and every week with the podcast we'll be coming up with stuff don't worry this fall not just Georgia coming off its 343 victory over Clemson all right thanks for listening thanks for the support we back on Tuesday afternoon for the Emergency podcast that's all for now have a great rest of your Sunday