In golf, the ability to move on from a bad shot, or even a great round that went nowhere, is often what separates the best from the rest. For Scottie Scheffler, that ability appears to be less a trained skill and more a natural wiring. The world number one came within a foot of becoming the second player in PGA history to break 60 on Friday at the Travelers Championship. And when pressed on whether his ability to forget the past gives him an edge, he gave a surprisingly candid answer.
“It’s like the old kind of adage in golf is you have to be really smart or really dumb,” Scheffler said at the press conference on Friday. “I don’t want to call myself dumb, but some of that, like, my long-term memory is not as sharp. Maybe it’s a little bit easier to kind of put some things behind me. But I also like going back and watching some of the good stuff so I can recall.
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“As a golfer, I think you’re always searching for feels and kind of things that you like. Sometimes when you can get back into those moments, you can remember them better. I remember the feeling over the putt on 18 and stuff like that, but the rest of the round, I don’t really remember, for whatever reason.”
The world number one is at the Travelers Championship, and on Friday, he shot a round of 60, 10 under par for the day. It is one of the rarest scores in professional golf. He was one birdie away from shooting 59, which would have made him only the second player in PGA Tour history to break 60 twice. He missed the final putt and settled for 60. Notably, only Scheffler has beaten his record.
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Scheffler had shot 59 before, in 2020 at the Northern Trust. However, he later lost that round by 13 shots to Dustin Johnson. The round was historic, but the result was so painful that it never stuck. He can barely recall that incident. In simpler words, he holds on to what serves him and lets go of what does not.
Overall, Scheffler has talked about his mental approach to the course before. As he put it on the Bible Carry podcast, once hosted by Webb Simpson, he does not think extreme competitiveness is a bad thing as long as one is gracious in both winning and defeat.
“Being an extremely competitive person, going out there and fighting and trying to do our best, and then taking our hats off and shaking hands, and being done at the end of the day,” he said of his approach to playing.
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That mindset was apparent even when he was a teenager. Those who coached him have spoken about how, as a 12-year-old, he could hit a ball into a bush off the sprinkler bounce, figure out a creative up-and-down, make par, and carry on without missing a beat. His instincts have only sharpened over time.
Scheffler has also been open about the fact that maintaining it is not effortless. He described it in the past as a constant battle, given how competitive he is by nature. Now, whether that qualifies as smart or dumb, as he joked, probably does not matter much to him as he sits atop the field heading into the weekend.
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