[Image: Golf Digest US]

Scottie Scheffler has been committing himself during the offseason to improving his physical strength in preparation for the upcoming 2026 season. Seems he might have been worn out by the end of the 2025 campaign, in which he won six times, including two majors at the PGA Championship and Open Championship.

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The world No.1 claimed another Jack Nicklaus Trophy for the PGA Tour Player of the Year.

“Most of that is just getting my strength back to a position where it was in 2024 and then making sure my body feels good for me to be able to perform throughout the course of the season and not have to kind of battle in certain events, maybe if my body’s not feeling 100 percent,” Scheffler said after he was announced as winning a fourth consecutive Nicklaus award. “So, using this time throughout the offseason where I’m not playing as much golf to flush out some inflammation and get some good recovery here at home just so I’m prepared to go out and play another long season.”

Scheffler, 29, was voted Player of the Year by his peers, beating out Rory McIlroy, who won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam as well as the elite Players Championship, and FedEx Cup champion Tommy Fleetwood. Scheffler joins Tiger Woods as the only players to win the award four or more times in a row. Woods won it five straight times from 1999-2003.

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South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter won the Arnold Palmer Award as Rookie of the Year after a season that included a victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic while being the only rookie to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Slowed at the start of the year by a hand injury Scheffler suffered over Christmas break when he punctured his palm with a broken wine glass, he didn’t win his first event of the season until the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May in his Dallas hometown. Then his season took off.

“I definitely didn’t start off the way I intended to start off. I missed the first couple weeks of the season but did a good job of bouncing back from that,” Scheffler said. “Started to play some pretty good golf in May, had that really nice start at the Byron here in Dallas, then started playing some really nice golf after that.”

Nice indeed.

At the Byron Nelson, Scheffler matched the low 72-hole score on tour (since 1983) with his 31-under 253 total. Two weeks later, he claimed his third career major title at the PGA Championship, winning by five at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. Two weeks later, he successfully defended his title at the Memorial Tournament, joining Woods as the only players with back-to-back wins at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Then came the third leg of the career Grand Slam when he won the Open at Royal Portrush. The US Open is now the only major Scheffler hasn’t won. He is eligible to complete the career grand slam at the 2026 US Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York.

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In 20 starts, Scheffler never finished outside the top 25 while posting a season-high 17 top-10 finishes. He didn’t miss a cut. His statistical performance included tour-leading numbers in scoring average –68.131 adjusted and 67.99 actual – and strokes gained/total at 2.743.

But now the undisputed world’s No. 1 player wants to be fitter and stronger for the 2026 season. That can’t bode well for the competition.

“When I talk about strength, it’s basically getting my body back to where it was in 2024. So that’s something that would be basically unnoticeable to anybody but myself just based upon how I feel,” he said. “Then using the time that I have here at home to get my body into a good place to where I could go out and compete another 20, 22 weeks out on tour because the season now is more of a sprint. You don’t really have the time throughout the year to be doing tons of strength stuff or anything like that. Basically, I just wanted to kind of maximise this offseason in terms of getting my body in a good place to where I could go out and compete and have good energy, have a good mind and just overall being a bit healthier in a sense.”

Scheffler said he is most proud of his consistency from week to week, being in contention, posting high finishes if he doesn’t win. He credits the mindset that changed for him a few years ago that began this run of Jack Nicklaus Awards.

“When you look at the last few years, I’ve been able to have a lot of 54 hole leads and then held those leads as well. I felt like early in my career I wasn’t bringing the proper intensity to the first few rounds of the tournament,” he explained. “It was almost like when the lights came on on the weekend, I was better than I was earlier in the week when there almost was lower stakes. A lot of that has just been trying to bring that same intensity to each round and every shot, which is a lot easier said than done.”

Still, he’s getting it done.