Scottie Scheffler’s competitive fire should define his 2026 season

ATLANTA – Ted Scott has played water volleyball with Scottie Scheffler before. It ended with Scott watching Scheffler nearly fistfight a friend.

“I was like, 'Man, this is crazy.' This is a different level of volleyball than I’ve played,” Scott said.

In truth, it doesn’t matter what it is. Whether it's water volleyball, basketball, Monopoly or professional golf, Scheffler is on a different level. He’s trying to crush you.

“That’s what he loves. That’s what makes him so good,” Scott added. “He’s not about the trophies, the fame; he really just honestly loves to compete at anything. He just happens to be incredible at golf. The perfect storm.”

Scheffler’s 2026 season won’t be remembered as the best of his career. He didn’t win a major championship nor meet the sky-high expectations he began the year with. Instead, it will be remembered as the year that his competitive fire crystallized as his defining trait.

Sure, the ball-striking is immaculate, the best since Tiger Woods. Scheffler’s putting is now among the most lethal on the PGA TOUR, too. But his relentless drive to persist, no matter the prestige of the event, how many weeks he played in a row or how his swing feels, stands the tallest. He will battle, and more often than not, he will win.

Scheffler’s season began the way it ended, with a victory. He emerged from a historically bunched leaderboard at the TOUR Championship and fired the round of the day, a 4-under 66 that was good enough to win by three strokes. It was a rosy bookend to a season Scheffler described as “a battle.” For almost any other player, it would be a career year.

“I hold myself to a high standard,” Scheffler said.

It marked Scheffler’s third win of the season and second in 14 days. It’s his 22nd career win, all of which have come in the last five years. He’s now the third player to win multiple FedExCups, joining Woods and Rory McIlroy. He’s also, at age 30, the new leader in the all-time money list.

Those accolades help tell the high-level story of a generational player who still has (presumably) many more peak years. But it does a poor job of reflecting the day-by-day difference that creates that long-term separation. The monotony of routine that Scheffler attacks with vigor. To do that, you only have to look back at the last month or so.

As major championship season ended with The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, most of the top players boarded planes headed home, ready to rest and recover. Scheffler went to Blaine, Minnesota, for the 3M Open.

There was nothing to prove there, but Scheffler had committed to play the event that had long courted him, and he intended to honor that promise. It would have been understandable if Scheffler just went through the motions while there. That’s not what Scott saw.

“This guy showed up at the 3M with the feistiest vinegar in his blood,” Scott said.

It ended as one of his five runners-up of the year, losing to 21-year-old phenom Jackson Koivun, who needed to play out of his mind to beat Scheffler.

It sounds simple to say that any time a pro turns up at a tournament, they are giving it their all to win. It’s also a fairy tale. It’s not true, even for the greats. McIlroy admitted as much earlier this week.

“I've turned up to events that I haven't necessarily wanted to be there because I feel like I should be there,” McIlroy said. “Like if I'm going to show up to a tournament, I want to perform at my best and play my best, and there's been times when I haven't done that.”

Particularly when you reach the stage of your career as Scheffler and McIlroy, only a handful of tournaments each year will change your legacy. It’s at the majors, THE PLAYERS Championship and a few of the other iconic venues on the PGA TOUR. Anything else just becomes part of a counting stat.

Scheffler isn’t in it for the stats. He’s in it for the juice, and there’s adrenaline to be found any place where a group of golfers are putting tees in the ground and counting up the score.

The world No. 1 arrived in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Championship without many of the concerns his counterparts on the range were feeling. He was assured of his spot at the TOUR Championship months before. More than half of that 68-man field needed two big weeks to assure a tee time at East Lake. That didn’t hinder his drive.

Scheffler began Sunday with a two-stroke lead. He ended it with an eight-stroke win, the largest of the season. He was firing at pins, content to run it up as big as he could.

A week later, he played the BMW Championship against doctors' wishes. That Monday before the tournament began, he came down with hand, foot and mouth disease. He had blisters that made it difficult to swallow and impossible to grip a club without pain. He shot 2-over 72 to fall well back of the pack. His doctors advised him to withdraw.

“I've never been one to try and quit,” Scheffler said.

“The doctor said, ‘You should quit,’ and I said, ‘He ain’t quitting,'” Scott recalled. “It’s just not who he is.”

Scheffler fired rounds of 65-68-68 across the last three days and still finished in a tie for 12th.

“If I was smarter, maybe I would have pulled out,” Scheffler admitted. “But I think that's part of my stubbornness, probably. That's probably a strength of mine and a weakness at times.”

That stubbornness kept him gnawing on something about East Lake. When he won the FedExCup in 2024, it was during the era of Starting Strokes. Scheffler began that week at No. 1, starting the tournament with a lead at 10 under. That advantage helped him create a five-stroke advantage over Collin Morikawa with four holes to play on Sunday. With that lead in hand, Scheffler simply steered it in and won by four. Yet the difference of that stroke meant that Morikawa would have beaten him without Starting Strokes. And suddenly Scheffler heard a chorus of “he didn't win, but he won.”

“It still bugs me a little bit that it's like, well, it's the first time you had the lowest score,” Scheffler said. “And it's like, well, it's kind of apples and oranges.”

There was no ambiguity this week. Scheffler trailed by three strokes to start the day, but within 48 minutes of hitting his first tee shot, he was tied. Scheffler made two early birdies, including a near ace at the par-3 second, while 54-hole leader Viktor Hovland stumbled.

Hovland and Scheffler traded the lead back and forth on the front nine and early on the back nine. That’s when Hovland blinked, bogeying the par-4 13th to lose touch with the lead. He never got it back. Scheffler birdied the 16th to stretch his lead to two, and when Hovland bogeyed the 17th, Scheffler played for par at the par-5 18th and a comfortable win.

“I don't take tournaments off. I don't take days off during tournaments. I try to give it my all each and every day. I feel like it's a gift to play out here on the PGA TOUR and don't want to take it for granted,” Scheffler said. “I don't want to look back at the end of my career and feel like I could have done more in order to play well. I want to be able to tell myself when I hang it up that I did everything I could. I feel like years like this kind of show that to myself, how important that is.”

Scheffler’s year ended fittingly. He had already won more FedExCup points and money than any other player. He was the frontrunner for Player of the Year and the runaway world No. 1. He had already won this trophy before, too.

Scheffler won it again anyway. He knows no other way.