Is Scottie Scheffler in DANGER of becoming the PGA Tour's next Tony Finau?
The Texan is yet to claim a win and came up short yet again at the weekend, drawing comparisons with his Ryder Cup team mate.
When Scottie Scheffler pegged it up on the PGA Tour in Houston on Sunday he had a chance to finally break free from a tag that has been haunting him for a while now.
That tag, as you might have already heard, is the fact that he is one of the better players on the PGA Tour not to actually claim a win yet. It's remarkable when you think about it, really. He's taken down Jon Rahm mano y mano at Whistling Straits in the Ryder Cup. It wasn't even a close match. He sent the world's best player packing with a 4&3 victory.
He's also a former PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and at the time of writing is ranked 21st in the world. To put that into context, he's above names such as Cam Smith, Patrick Reed, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood and Matthew Wolff to name but a few.
"I'll take from this I felt like I played a lot of good golf this week without really my best stuff," a dejected Scheffler told the media afterwards, who also admitted he felt a little bit uncomfortable standing over the ball on Sunday.
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Is Scottie Scheffler the best player currently on the PGA Tour without a win? Leave your thoughts
— GolfMagic.com (@GolfMagic) November 15, 2021
On Friday and Saturday, Scheffler only dropped three shots in 36 holes. Fast-forward to his final round and he dropped four 18 holes as he battled his way to a 1-under 69 at Memorial Park to come up agonisingly short yet again. Jason Kokrak won his third PGA Tour title. This was off the back of shooting a course record 62 after he admitted he "had enough of this crap" and got angry. That narrowed his focus.
In 2021 alone, Scheffler has mustered 10 top-5 performances. In his career so far, he's played in 66 PGA Tour events. Of course, there can only be one winner every week and it's incredibly difficult to get the job done. But his natural talent means surely he is due a win sooner rather than later? He's in danger of having the Tony Finau tag at this point.
Scottie Scheffler was set up for success when he took down World No. 1 Jon Rahm in Sunday Singles. pic.twitter.com/Zcqr8SnbuC
— PGA of America (@PGA) September 30, 2021
His rookie season was astonishing, too. He finished fifth in the FedExCup standings as one of eight PGA Tour rookies to qualify for the playoffs. He also advanced to the Tour Championship. That feat was last achieved by Xander Schauffele in 2016-17. He also shot a 59 in his second round at the Northern Trust and on top of that made 18 cuts in 23 starts.
He's a PGA Tour winner and a major champion in the making. Why hasn't he won yet?
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Ben joined GolfMagic as Content Executive in September 2021 just before the Ryder Cup and has contributed significantly to the growth of the site. Ben now assumes our Content Manager role, specialising in PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf content.
