‘I’m not the Player of the Year, no chance’: Top players agree Scottie Scheffler is frontrunner for fifth straight award

ST. LOUIS – Rory McIlroy shook his head and laughed.

The question was there to run with if McIlroy wanted to. Asked, in a roundabout way, whether he would have a case for Player of the Year if he went on to win the TOUR Championship, McIlroy answered it swiftly.

"I'm not the Player of the Year, no chance,” McIlroy said. “Scottie Scheffler) is."

Forgive McIlroy for any recency bias. McIlroy was paired with Scheffler for the first two rounds of his FedEx St. Jude Championship victory, a historic putting performance that yielded an eight-shot victory. McIlroy sidestepped a question about the impending Player of the Year race earlier last week, but it was clear to him now. That type of experience will shift your viewpoints. McIlroy is a changed man.

The game within the game over the final two weeks of the FedExCup Playoffs is whether someone can overthrow Scheffler’s run of four straight Player of the Year awards. The race, the tightest in years, won’t be voted on until this fall, but the biggest data points remaining will play out in the next two events – the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club and the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club.

Who you support depends on what you value. Is it wins above all else? In that case, Matt Fitzpatrick and Chris Gotterup are your top contenders with three wins a piece.

If you value majors more than anything, Wyndham Clark's U.S. Open victory coupled with his triumph at the CJ CUP Byron Nelson makes him a compelling choice.

If you value the strength of wins, Cameron Young's victories at THE PLAYERS Championship and the Cadillac Championship are two of the best you’ll find all year.

If you value unrelenting consistency, Scheffler is the choice. He leads the TOUR in scoring average, Strokes Gained: Total, FedExCup points, earnings, top 10s, and a litany of other stats that we will spare the ink on here. When Scheffler’s resume included only one victory, it was hard to put him above the rest. But add his Memphis title to his victory at The American Express and suddenly Scheffler’s case feels legitimate. Having the world No. 2 throw his weight behind Scheffler unequivocally ought to help, too.

“Sorry, there's two weeks to go, but I firsthand watched him for the first two days last week, and he if he keeps playing like that, we're…” McIlroy said, trailing off. “If he gains nine strokes on the greens every week, we're all F'd.”

McIlroy was on the outskirts of those conversations for part of the season. Any winner of the Masters is bound to be considered. McIlroy has not built on it, though. He’s played only seven events since and contended in none of them. Last week, he might as well have been a fan, losing to Scheffler by 15 shots over their two rounds together. That prompted McIlroy to return to Florida for a day to work with his coach Michael Bannon and caddie Harry Diamond.

“I feel like we're heading into the right direction,” McIlroy said. “But, yeah, I have this feeling in my golf swing that I just, I need to, I just need to engrain, and I just need to hit a ton of balls while doing it.

“That's what's hard,” he continued. “It's hard to do that for three hours on the range and then try to go on the golf course and play like that as well. So I think the more reps I can get on the range the more comfortable it will end up becoming when I get out on the course.”

McIlroy’s opinion on Player of the Year isn’t held alone. Matt Fitzpatrick was asked whether winning the Player of the Year is important to him. He said it is, though he seemed resigned to the fact that it’s already Scheffler’s to lose.

“I think a certain someone's sewed it up last week, if I'm honest,” Fitzpatrick said with a laugh.

Fitzpatrick owns one of the most compelling cases, considering he outdueled Scheffler for his biggest win of the year at the RBC Heritage. The two went to a playoff and Fitzpatrick bested Scheffler with an outstanding birdie at the last hole. Fitzpatrick still couldn’t argue with Scheffler’s body of work.

“He's leading the FedExCup by a lot of points, I've just made a point that the guy who's played the best the whole season deserves to be the best player,” Fitzpatrick said. “And right now that is him.: