Scottie Scheffler is the #1 pro golfer in the world. He has kept to position for about the past 2.5 years. He has won 17 PGA Tour tournaments. He won his fourth major championship, The (British) Open, three weeks ago at Royal Portrush in Scotland by four strokes. He is the first golfer to be compared to Tiger Woods in his dominance of pro golf.
Scottie Scheffler is very well liked by both his peers and the golfing public. Scottie is also a Christian who likes to share his faith with the public. Scottie is a member of the PGA Tour Bible Study that meets weekly which I cofounded 60 years ago and co-led for 18 years.
Did Scheffler Take Too Much Time with Family?
As soon as Scottie won at Portrush, his wife and small child walked out onto the 18th green to greet him and celebrate his win. That is a common occurrence in professional golf tournaments that are televised. But the spent a lot of time cozying up, etc. As a TV viewer, I had seen them and many other pros do this before with family. And it often is heartwarming to see that many Tour pro golfers have a family life.
But this time it seemed excessive. It was making me a bit edgy. One reason is that that takes up valuable television time. And it delays the presentation ceremony waiting to happen, an event that is highlighted at the four major golf championships every year. That extra time costs MONEY for television executives.
Then, all golfers at the completion of their 18-hole tournament rounds must enter the scoring area, usually in a closed room, to check their score card, sign it, and turn it into tournament officials. It is a major part of the game that is necessary to complete the tournament. For in golf, different from all other sports, each player is responsible for registering his or her own score with tournament officials. Only after all scores are registered as official can the tournament be declared completed and the winner announced. So, as with all tournaments, Scottie still had to finalize that necessity.
Has Scheffler Been Having Professional Burnout?
Scheffler finally turned in his score card and walked out to the setup for him to receive the famous Claret Jug. It was the 153rd British Open, a tournament that began in 1860. Thus, it is the oldest trophy in golf. All golf fans there and those watching around the world were awaiting to hear the winner’s remarks.
Scottie then made a speech in which he spoke philosophically about golf and life, as if family and perhaps faith, though I don’t think he mentioned that, are more important than winning golf tournaments. I grew uncomfortable for Scottie while listening to it. I am a big fan of Scottie Scheffler and have written many blog posts about his golfing success and his Christian faith.
Twenty-nine year old Scheffler, who is hailed as a truly great competitor (there are some good stories about it), said in the speech that winning at sports can be a fleeting memory. He said, “It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for a few minutes – it only lasts a few minutes, that euphoric feeling.”
Scheffler then further elaborated, “What’s the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That’s something that I wrestle with on a daily basis.” Many have since assessed that Scheffler was revealing a personal crisis he has been having about his profession, which is called “burnout.” That may be true. Others have been taking it otherwise, and negatively, such as Tom Brady.
Scheffler Criticized for His Open Victory Speech
Since then, in the past three weeks there have been numerous media articles written criticizing Scheffler for that Open speech. Foremost among them may be an article written by Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England Patriots who retired 2.5 years ago as the winningest quarterback in NFL history. In his remarks Brady said, “Scottie said he’d rather be a better father and husband than a good golfer. And my question is: why are those mutually exclusive? … The connected.”
This Brady criticism of Scheffler is somewhat bizarre, no less for its timing. When Brady retired, in February 2023, his wife and former model, Gisele Bundchen, immediately divorced him. Then had been growing apart because he had previously retired, as she wanted, and then he un-retired and played another year. But Brady’s criticism of Scheffler about making marriage and family a priority over profession seemed rather hollow coming from Brady.
Yet Brady seemed right in criticizing Scheffler, irrespective of his Schefffler’s philosophy about life, for seemingly not celebrating winning for the first time in his truly great golf career what many regard as the greatest golf championship of all. And that’s what others wrote about as well.
What Scottie Scheffler said in his victory speech after hoisting the Claret Jug is something that he and others surely had discussed many times with his fellow Christians in the PGA Tour Bible Study. I don’t disagree with it, but I think he simply overdid both the family celebration and what he said in his speech about family. IMO, that is taking an unnecessary advantage of valuable time of sponsors, TV networks, and the golfing public. The main thing they want to see and hear is Scottie celebrating perhaps the greatest win in the sport, and he was not delivering.
Conclusion
I hope Scottie has learned from this situation and will do better the next time since it certainly appears there will be a lot more victory speeches coming from this guy. And that is despite his awkward-looking, unprecedented Scottie Shuffle that he does with the quick movement of his feet when he masterfully strikes a golf ball like none other on the planet these days.
[Scottie Scheffler came from behind today to shoot a 65 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at Memphis, Tennessee. He is in third place, two strokes behind England’s Tommy Fleetwood who keeps knocking at the door on the PGA Tour to get his first win.]
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