Course insights, tournament coverage, and more from Aronimink<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cFor me, getting better at golf is such an interesting and fun thing to try to accomplish,\u201d Scheffler said this week. \u201cYou’re always toeing the line between getting better and getting worse. When I can go out by myself and practice and have something that I want to work on and improve on, that’s one of my favorite things. I love trying to figure things out. That’s always been what’s driven me.\u201d<\/p>\n
You could convince yourself this is true of a lot of professional golfers, but if you spend enough time around the game, you realize it is not. Some players love the competitive mania of playing in tournaments, some love the lifestyle the game has to offer, and some are here because they realized, at a certain age, they were blessed with the kind of talent they knew they should not squander. Very few derive almost a perverse satisfaction out of trying to master a game that even they know, deep down, cannot be conquered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woods had that in his DNA, and so does Scheffler.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The accomplishment is almost secondary to the art.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t really realize that until earlier this year when Scheffler mentioned that he loves to grill other players about how they hit certain shots. Jordan Spieth, in particular, ends up on the receiving end of it when it comes to obsessing over the short game. How do you hit that chip with draw spin? How do you make the ball land so softly? How can I incorporate some of that into my own repertoire?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always been like that, he\u2019s always been a grinder, and it\u2019s actually something he had to work on doing less of,\u201d said Spieth, one of Scheffler\u2019s closest friends on Tour and a frequent practice round partner. \u201cHe seems to be always curious, especially when you get shots that aren\u2019t your standard shots.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There has been a lot of buzz this week about Scheffler and McIlroy finally facing each other when they\u2019re both playing well, and what that might say about who is the game\u2019s best player. Scheffler was asked if the prospect of a duel with McIlroy motivated him at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He admitted that it did not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, when I look over the course of my life, my sources of motivation have always been internal,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t really look for a lot of sources of outside motivation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s impossible to say, right now, whether Scheffler will ever grab the attention of the public the way McIlroy has or the way Woods did in his prime. What is reasonable to say is that Scheffler doesn\u2019t care one way or another. He loves competition but isn\u2019t in it for money, and he would trade away whatever fame he\u2019s achieved if it meant he could get three hours a day of solitary practice without being bothered by anyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so single-minded, focused on doing what he has to do,\u201d said Adam Scott. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t get caught up in distractions, he doesn’t make his own distractions. He just does what he knows he needs to do to win every week. He measures himself by some other standard. It\u2019s slightly unusual for a superstar athlete. And I say that with nothing but admiration for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
So while it\u2019s probably true that Scheffler has no aura, he seems to possess something just as interesting. The understanding that he doesn\u2019t need it to get what he wants out of the game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler has no aura.\u00a0 He\u2019s boring.\u00a0 He looks like The Lego Man, and has about as much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-642293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}