Scottie Scheffler is right - winning is rarely the reason sport makes you happy

Irish Times

18-07-2025

'There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life. And you get there, you get to number one in the world, and they're like, 'What's the point?' I really do believe that because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis.'
— Scottie Scheffler at Portrush on Tuesday
Tell me about it, Scottie. The oven door in our kitchen is broken at the minute. It falls off every time you go to open it – my kingdom for a hinge pin. Even when it's closed, it sags to the right a little, like a clapped out jalopy with a dodgy front axle. So there's always a little heat escaping out of the top right corner.
As a result, we've had to adjust baking times and temperatures. Now, you could go the scientific route – measure the gap, calibrate the airflow, invoke Bernoulli and so on. But that all feels a bit too Bryson DeChambeauish and we're more of a Rory McIlroy house. Play it by feel, judge it by eye, go with whatever vibes are in the air.
And you know what? We haven't burnt a thing yet. In fact, just this week, we banged out a tray of chocolate chip cookies that would give a dentist the price of a kitchen extension. Or at least a new oven. Beautiful, they were. Sweet, chewy, moreish.
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But no sooner were we chowing down on them than Scottie Scheffler's pre-tournament press conference jumped to mind. What's the point? Like, what actually is it? You do the thing and the thing is great but then the thing is gone.
'I think it's kind of funny,' Scheffler said. 'I think I said something after the Byron this year about... like it feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling.
'
To win the Byron Nelson Championship at home
[Scheffler grew up in Texas], I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf to have an opportunity to win that tournament. You win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister's there – it's such an amazing moment. Then it's like, 'Okay, what are we going to eat for dinner?' Life goes on.'
Scottie Scheffler just gave one of the best (and deepest) press conference answers ever heard.
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest)
Who knew Scottie Scheffler was such a nihilist on the side? His lengthy foray into the realm of the great philosophical questions would remind you of the scene in The Sopranos where Tony is grousing to his therapist about the fact that his kid is talking all of a sudden about having no purpose.
Dr Melfi: 'Sounds like Anthony Junior has stumbled upon existentialism.'
Tony: 'Fuckin' internet…'
And to think we used to mock Scheffler for being boring. Suddenly being the best player in the world, the golfer of the decade so far (sorry, Rory), suddenly his global pre-eminence isn't even his greatest achievement. Forget the career grand slam – anyone who can make a golf tournament press conference genuinely interesting is a rare talent indeed.
Glory in sport is such a beguiling notion. It's more than that, in fact. It's a north star, it's the thing that all the other things are supposed to be for. In elite sport especially, you set targets so that you meet targets. And then you set new ones and newer ones again, all the way up until you reach the ultimate one. Then you get the glory.
Scottie Scheffler: Anyone who can make a golf tournament press conference genuinely interesting is a rare talent indeed. Photograph:But nobody tells you what it's going to feel like. Read any good sports books and time and time again you will come across descriptions of the hours after winning. You're Kellie Harrington sitting alone in a cavernous Olympic foodhall in Tokyo, crying. You're Tiger Woods, refusing to go out for a celebration dinner after a tournament win because that's what's supposed to happen.
Glory is indefinable. That's why all the sports psychologists talk about the process rather than the result. Your motivation has to be the doing of the thing rather than the winning of the thing. Chasing fulfilment through winning is a fool's errand.
Joe Brolly did an interview one time where he described the aftermath of winning the All-Ireland with Derry in 1993. 'I was standing in the shower with Fergal McCusker, my great friend, and I said to him, 'Like, is this it? All that, for this?' And I felt that. Everybody was celebrating like mad and they were going wild. There were loads of women on the go and all that and I was just thinking, 'Fuck, what a disappointment all that was.''
Leaving aside what a disappointment it must have been for Fergal McCusker – you win your only All-Ireland and the first order of business is to stand next to a naked Joe Brolly as he ruminates on the meaning of life – there is something bracing and ominous and true about it all. Winning resolves nothing other than the fixture at hand. Anyone depending on it to make them happy probably has deeper stuff to sort out.
Joe Brolly celebrates Derry's All-Ireland win in 1993 - but not for long. Photograph: James Meehan/Inpho
It's All-Ireland hurling final weekend and two worlds are colliding. On the one side you have Tipperary – young and dreaming and ahead of schedule. On the other you have Cork – weighed down under 20 years of hurt, a whole county basically 10 months pregnant.
Whoever is jumping and roaring at teatime on Sunday will have invested so much of who they are into it. But Scottie Scheffler has news for them – they better have something else on the go, too. Something else that matters. Something real and deep and theirs.
The cookie is gone in a few seconds. The afternoon of the school holidays spent baking them? That's the point.
Also, even existentialism has a shelf life. By Friday afternoon, the first thing that popped up when you typed Scottie Scheffler into X was a video of him peppering the flag on 17 on Thursday, soundtracked by someone - possibly even the great man himself - farting and the commentators in stitches laughing.
Life goes on, indeed.