In my younger days, I was the sports columnist for The Augusta Chronicle, and that meant before the Masters each year, I would go to the Doral Open down in MIami and interview a bunch of golfers for our gigantic preview section. I was in Augusta for three years, and over that time, I probably profiled 75 or 100 golfers.
I mean, sure, there were a few repeats — nobody else wanted to talk to Curtis Strange because he could be quite grumpy, so I got stuck with him all three years* — but mostly I talked with new golfers every year.
*My favorite of the three interviews was the last one where I talked with him on the putting green — while he was putting — and began by asking how he was preparing for the Master this year. He stopped putting, looked at me, and said, “EVERY SINGLE YEAR YOU ASK ME THAT SAME QUESTION!” He really could be quite grumpy.
In any case, I learned something from doing all those interviews, and it is this: Most golfers are spectacularly boring. I know that sounds like a knock, and maybe there were times after another golfer interview laden with cliches that I thought so … but I don’t mean it as a knock at all now.
I think ideal golfers, by their very nature, should be boring.
Think about what it takes to be a great golfer. Think about how much time you have to spend outside, alone, hitting a golf ball again and again and again and again, thinking entirely about your grip, your posture, your wrists, hands, stance, balance, takeaway, backswing, downswing, impact, follow-through, and I’m getting sleepy just typing this.
Becoming a great golfer is tedious and all-consuming — there’s no time and no space to live the life necessary to become fascinating or hilarious.
Nope. It’s just: Another swing. Another swing. Another swing. Another swing.
Best I can tell, Scottie Scheffler is neither fascinating nor hilarious.
Nor should we expect him to be.
Scheffler’s the best golfer we’ve seen since Tiger Woods.
He rolled to an easy victory at the Open Championship this weekend — it was pretty much a no-drama weekend — and he now has four major championships to go with his two Player Championships, his Tour Championships, and his 112 consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the world. He is such a pure striker of the golf ball that really the only question going into any tournament these days is: “How’s Scottie putting?”
If the answer is, “Scottie’s putting well,” then the tournament is already over.
Scottie Scheffler’s impact on golf hasn’t been anything close to Tiger’s … and I think it’s at least in part because he’s the ideal golfer. Tiger wasn’t exactly fascinating either — he’s become a lot more interesting in the last few years after enduring so many ups and downs — but Tiger did express himself on the golf course. He’d rage and first-pump and bark at camera people and hit impossible shots, you always knew what he was feeling.
You never know with Scottie. He’s a metronome out there, a dial tone, he just hits good shot after good shot, and when he makes the rare mistake, he takes his medicine, takes the bogey, and then goes on to the next shot. He is now so good that the other golfers get scared when they see him on the leaderboard. You know why?
He doesn’t beat himself.
That might not be the most thrilling sentence. But those are the four scariest words in golf.
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