The question posed to Justin Thomas was straightforward: a man atop the golf world is doing things not seen since Tiger Woods. When people ask, “What is Scottie Scheffler doing that is so special?”, what do you say?
“What is he doing?” Thomas replied during his pre-tournament press conference at the U.S. Open. “Well, everything.”
You’ve heard that sentiment before. (Jordan Spieth offered a similar comment a month ago.) It’s become commonplace for top professionals to describe Scheffler’s brilliance because, well, Scheffler consistently displays it. There were the nine wins in 2024, certainly. But, technically, the most dominant version of Scheffler is the one we’re witnessing now. There was the five-shot victory at the PGA Championship, the eight-shot triumph at the CJ Cup that preceded it, and the four-shot win at the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago. These aren’t just wins—they’re blowouts, and they look impressive in a dataset. Just ask DataGolf, the leading analytics website in golf media, which ranks golfers at their absolute peak.
You can find proof in the numbers—Scheffler’s peak surpasses anyone else’s in the modern era except Tiger Woods’—or you can listen to the professionals’ ongoing praise.
“It’s effortless,” Thomas said. “Every single aspect of his game is unbelievable. I think his mental game is better than anyone else’s out here. To play with those expectations and stay present as often as he does is, to me, perhaps more impressive than even the golf he’s playing. It’s so, so hard to do, and it’s also difficult to explain if you’re in his shoes. He simply doesn’t make mistakes and almost lets himself be in contention rather than forcing it. He just seems to play better.”
The differences between Thomas and Scheffler are, simultaneously, both minute and vast. Thomas has recently had a marginally better short game than Scheffler, if only by a fraction. Scheffler has edged ahead—again, just slightly—on the greens. In approach play, there’s little difference: Thomas ranks in the 95th percentile of PGA Tour professionals, while Scheffler is in the 99th. The biggest gap is off the tee, where, despite Thomas hitting farther, Scheffler has become remarkably accurate while still being plenty long.
In short, Thomas is often close, striving to keep pace, but just slightly behind. Hence, he aspires to emulate, more than anything, Scheffler’s hard-to-quantify mental game. The idea of letting yourself get into contention—ignoring expectations and noise, simply playing your game, and trusting it to elevate you on the leaderboard—is something Thomas has been working on recently.
“I’m improving at letting myself get into contention,” Thomas said. “Last year, I felt I was doing that, but then, come Saturday or Sunday, I was forcing it, trying to win the tournament instead of just playing, trusting, and believing.”
He felt he achieved this at the Valspar Championship in March, where he nearly won but finished second. He felt it at the RBC Heritage in April, where he broke through and won for the first time in years. He also felt it at the Truist in May, but sensed the tournament’s pressure mounting and forced the issue on the 16th, leading to an unnecessary bogey.
“It was like at Hilton Head, I just had complete acceptance, like I’m just going to play here,” Thomas said. “Of course, I wanted to win, but it was about doing the best I could. If I had a birdie opportunity, I’d try to make it because I wanted to, not because I needed to win the tournament. Adopting that mindset more often would be better.”
However, there’s a fundamental challenge in reaching that state of acceptance: competing in tournaments alongside Scottie Scheffler, whose best performance surpasses anyone else’s over 72 holes. Thomas made this clear when asked about the challenge of reclaiming World No. 1.
“It’s still on my mind,” he said. “I even thought last week—some might laugh—but if I can even catch him this year. Win however many tournaments the rest of the year … and maybe Scottie doesn’t play or something.”
That might be what it takes at the moment.
This article originated on Golf.com
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