What Scottie Scheffler's PGA Championship celebration tells us about the man

New York Times

19-05-2025

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Wanamaker Trophy is a beast: a 27-pound silver chalice stretching 27 inches from handle to handle and 28 inches from top to bottom. It's the largest trophy in major golf, the kind a past champion joked makes you look good in photos because your biceps must be flexed to hold it in the air after your PGA Championship victory.
Advertisement
But you will have trouble finding this colossal prize when Scottie Scheffler brings it back to his home in Dallas' Devonshire neighborhood.
You'll be hard pressed to find any indicators of the magnitude of who lives there. Friends have been inside and never seen a single one of Scheffler's countless trophies. One of his main buddies at Royal Oaks Country Club, Frank Voigt, said he's been over multiple times and never seen any — except for the time Scheffler had his Masters trophy hanging out inside the old white 2012 GMC Yukon XL he sold last year. No, the mementos are practically hidden, residing in Scheffler's home office that he simply calls 'the golf room.'
'That's where all my crap goes, literally,' he said.
Most of the trophies go on a bookcase that he and wife Meredith had to remodel last year.
'I'd like to say that it's nicely presented, but it's not,' Scheffler said with a chuckle.
But Meredith would not stand for that. She and his father, Scott, leaned forward and animatedly interrupted, 'It's nice!' And like a husband who knows better, he turned back to the mic and said, 'OK, it's nice,' with his tail between his legs.
In these moments, you can visualize Scheffler as not just the best golfer in the world but the humble Texas family man who refuses to let the sport be his identity. That lasts until you see Scheffler the savage, the killer, the man shouting '(Expletive) yeah, baby' as he flips an entire major championship in 40 minutes. He demands to win at a compulsive level. Once he does, it's over. On to the next.
It is somewhere within these two truths that the paradox of Scottie Scheffler must be understood, but it wasn't until his dominant Sunday win at the PGA Championship that the intersection of these worlds became clear. There is indeed a payoff for that fire.
His name is Bennett.
At first, he was calm. Normal. He tapped in the final winning putt, leaned down to pick it up and hugged his caddie, Ted Scott. He shook hands with playing partner Alex Noren. He took a few beats at the center of the green and acknowledged the crowd. Simple.
Then, Scheffler released.
It all came out. He stomped his right foot and threw his Nike hat to the ground with the entire weight of his body. 'Yes!' he shouted, clapping his hands together and shouting to the masses before walking over to chest bump Scott. Oh, he wanted this, a five-shot annihilation for his third major championship and first outside The Masters.
He then practically sprinted over the creek to find his family. First, he wrapped his arms around Meredith for several moments. Then he grabbed Bennett, his son born just over a year ago. He'd won tournaments with Bennett, sure, but this was his first major championship as a father.
With Bennett still in his arms, Scheffler made his way to his parents. There was Scott Scheffler, who gave up his job as a carpenter to take care of the four kids while their mother, Diane, worked as a lawyer and paid the bills. Scott told him he couldn't put it into words — and with three generations of Scheffler boys in each other's arms — he told him, 'I'm so proud of you.'
Advertisement
Scheffler then carried Bennett on his victory tour. Up the hill toward the 10th tee and down by the practice green and over to the scoring area. He saw a camera and had Bennett pose for TV. When he eventually did make it over to scoring, he tried to make the handoff to Meredith, only for Bennett to resist and demand to be back with dad.
Having to go sign his card, Scheffler put Bennett on the ground and knew to give him his hat and the scorecard holder out of his back pocket to play with. Dad levels achieved.
Deep at his core, Scheffler's defining trait is a relentless competitiveness seen both on golf's largest stages and at country club patios. He's the world No. 1 golfer and the grown man arguing with middle-aged insurance salesmen and finance guys that he can beat two of them in pickleball on his own. The one who cried in his wife's arms after a blowout Ryder Cup defeat. The one who got so mad during a college tournament he took a swipe at a Mesquite bush and had a thorn lodged so deep in his thumb it had to be surgically removed. He got so overwhelmed the Sunday morning of the 2024 Masters he told his friends, 'I wish I didn't want to win as badly as I do.'
Yet the moment he completes these victories … it's over. He constantly gets questions about career goals or his achievements, and that's when the superstar tends to tighten up.
'I don't focus on that kind of stuff,' he said. 'I love coming out here and trying to compete and win golf tournaments, and that's what I'm focused on. After this week, I'm going to go home and get ready for next week's tournament, and the show goes on.'
How can you want something so bad yet not understand what to do with it, to be wired in such a way you cry the morning before your first Masters because you don't think you're ready or you tell your friends you wish you didn't want it this bad, but then once you have it you admit you have no interest in thinking about the tournament or the green jacket and just want to get home to your family?
Advertisement
'I feel like playing professional golf is an endlessly not satisfying career,' Scheffler said that Sunday night in Augusta.
'I wish … I wish I could soak this in a little bit more. Maybe I will tonight when I get home. But at the end of the day, I think that's what the human heart does. You always want more, and I think you have to fight those things and focus on what's good.'
It can be confusing, this hyper-competitive golf savant who wants it so damn bad yet takes the most pride as a human being in leaving that at the office the moment he reaches the car park. We've seen him slam clubs and rant to himself at the Players Championship, then immediately make cutesy faces and sounds to Bennett on his way out of the locker room. Scheffer is both of those people. Bennett is the connecting tissue.
Scottie Scheffler did not have his best golf Sunday. Not at all. Despite his lead reaching as high as five shots through three holes, his driver kept missing way, way left. His irons kept finding bunkers. He was below average in the field both off the tee and in approach, an absolute anomaly for Scheffler on a major Sunday. Things went south enough that fellow two-time major winner Jon Rahm caught him at 9-under-par on the back nine.
The swings weren't even bad, both Scheffler and his coach Randy Smith said. It made Scheffler tell Scott he didn't understand why it kept going left, leading to Scott sarcastically giving the greatest golf advice in history:
'Well, maybe you're aimed over there. Just try and hit a little further right.'
So he went to 10, hit a perfect drive and Ted Scott simply said, 'There he is.' Scheffler then birdied 10, parred the next three and went birdie-birdie on 14-15 right as Rahm collapsed, missing two makeable birdie putts and closing with a bogey and two doubles. By the time Scheffler reached 18, he led the field by six and Rahm by eight.
Advertisement
'He has that ability to be like, 'You're not coming after me, bud,'' Scott said.
Scheffler's chaplain and friend, Brad Payne, told Texas Monthly his first connections with Scheffler were of a man chasing a narrow type of golf glory.
'It's a very lonely place,' Payne said. 'You can be around a million people and feel alone.'
Payne worked with pro Grayson Murray for stretches before his shocking suicide last year. Payne recalled Murray telling him he was inspired by Scheffler's ability to leave golf behind and find safety and security within his family. He wanted that. So when the tour held a memorial service for Murray at a tournament, Scheffler spoke about Murray and the importance of not carrying your baggage alone.
Scott took over Scheffler's bag when the phenom was just a 25-year-old prospect without a win. He saw him go from an exciting talent to a winner, a world No. 1 and then a father.
So now as they walk along the fairways on the biggest stages in golf, he hears Scheffler talk about his son. You're not gonna believe what Bennett did last night. It was so funny when Bennett did this. Scott, a father himself, loves it.
'He's just a good man,' he said. 'And I think ultimately we can look back at this tournament a year ago, what happened to him and how that played out getting arrested and that whole deal, you can really see the character of Scottie Scheffler shine through brighter than anything he could do on a golf course. That's who he is, so having a kid? It just points to another place where he is.'
So what was Scheffler actually feeling as he threw his hat to the ground? What prompted a player known for usually containing that release to let it out?
'Just a lot of happiness,' he said. 'I think, you know, just maybe thankful as well. It was a long week. I felt like this was as hard as I battled for a tournament in my career. This was a pretty challenging week.'
As he said just a year before, golf is an unsatisfying career by design. The greatest player in the world might win one out of 10 starts. A 10th-place finish is a nice week. And as much as he tries to keep everything in perspective, falling short makes him boil inside. He admits that. What Scheffler has figured out is how to compartmentalize at the right moments.
Advertisement
But Sunday night, yeah, Scheffler showed the world he wanted it. That's because he's so aware of how much it takes.
'It's an endless pursuit,' he said, 'and it's a lot of fun.'
And when it was over, he did his duties, gave his speeches and answered all the questions. By 8:10 p.m. Sunday night, the emotions had subsided and it was just a man doing his job. But after the last question, he hopped out of his seat, walked down to Meredith and grabbed Bennett with both hands. He lifted him high in the air and made the kind of silly, stupid faces you do with your kid.
Who the hell cares where the Wanamaker goes?
(Top photo of Scottie Scheffler and son Bennett: Scott Taetsch / PGA of America)