“Anybody who thinks the Americans don’t care about this, you’re seeing it right here.”
Those words were spoken by a member of the Sky Sports commentary team while the camera fixed on the world’s best player, slumped over on the back of a golf cart, face in hands, wiping away tears from his eyes while wife Meredith offered words of solace after her husband suffered the worst beatdown in the history of the Ryder Cup.
Scottie Scheffler and partner Brooks Koepka had work to do when they stepped up to the first tee at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome for the Saturday foursomes of the 2023 Ryder Cup. As of that moment, the Americans hadn’t managed to win a single match, losing five and halving the other three, sparking discussion about the team’s lack of practice in the lead-up to the event and questions about its competitive desire to win.
Down 5 points, the U.S. was in desperate need of a strong showing Saturday to have any hope of completing a monumental comeback. Someone needed to charge the defibrillator and shock the downtrodden U.S. side back to life. World No. 1 Scheffler and Koepka—who had won the PGA Championship, his fifth major title, just a few months prior—seemed the right men for the job.
They failed miserably. It took just 11 holes for Norway’s Viktor Hovland and 23-year-old rookie Ludvig Aberg of Sweden to complete an utter dismantling of a generation’s two greatest American champions. The final tally was 9-&-7, the largest margin of victory in a Ryder Cup match. Ever.
“Horrible situation for the Americans, quite embarrassing for them,” the Sky Sports team remarked.
The scene was shocking, and seeing Scheffler at the lowest of lows was in stark contrast to his Ryder Cup debut at Whistling Straits two years earlier. With the U.S. leading 11-5 entering the final session in 2021, Scheffler—who’d yet to win on the PGA TOUR —was thrown to the proverbial wolves, matched up against then-World No. 1 Jon Rahm in what was chalked up as a throwaway match for Captain Steve Stricker’s U.S. team.
In other words, it wouldn’t really matter if Scheffler lost.
Which could be exactly why he dispatched Rahm with ease, winning 4&3 to cap off a 2-0-1 record in his first Ryder Cup appearance. The day before, Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau had blitzed Hovland and England’s Tommy Fleetwood down the stretch to win a dramatic and spirited foursomes match.
So, while Scheffler has seemingly been on cruise control in PGA TOUR events over the past few years, when it comes to the Ryder Cup, he’s certainly been on both sides of the “thrill of victory, agony of defeat” cliche.
With those two previous Ryder Cup experiences under his belt—plus four majors, an Olympic gold medal, 17 TOUR wins, a FedEx Cup and three player-of-the-year awards—Scheffler will arrive at Bethpage Black as “the man” for the U.S. Team in 2025. The flagbearer. The quarterback.
“Scottie brings a lot to the team,” U.S. Captain Keegan Bradley said. “He brings, obviously, a tremendous amount just based on his ability and how good he plays and how dominant he is. He’s a tough matchup for anybody. But, also, he’s a leader of the team, he leads by example. He’s a guy that everyone looks up to and he brings a lot of leadership to the room.
“When I watch him, what he’s doing on the golf course right now, I think of Tiger Woods.”
That sentiment was commonplace among Scheffler’s peers after he dusted the field at Royal Portrush in July, winning the Open Championship by four shots. Two months earlier, he won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow by five.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here’s Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,” said World No. 3 Xander Schauffele. “You can’t even say he’s on a run. He’s just been killing it for over two years now. He’s a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us.”
It might be difficult for Schauffele when he’s competing against Scheffler, but he’ll surely welcome such dominance as his teammate on the U.S. side at Bethpage.
As for the Tiger comparisons, Scheffler scoffs.
“I still think they’re a bit silly,” Scheffler said in his Sunday post-round press conference at Royal Portrush, with the Claret Jug resting in front of him. “Tiger won, what, 15 majors? This is my fourth. I just got one-fourth of the way there. I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf.”
Scheffler’s win at the Open Championship was juxtaposed against one of his signature press conference soliloquies a few days prior. While he appreciates and adores the game of golf, he said, the moments of joy it gives him are fleeting, causing him to wrestle with the question “What’s the point?”
Scheffler says he finds true satisfaction in striving to be a good husband to Meredith and a good father to his son, Bennett, who was born in May 2024 and has stolen the show in most of his dad’s victory celebrations since.
“To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world because what’s the point? This is not a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.”
Profound words from one of the more insightful athletes in the world today. One part of that statement that seemed overlooked in the social media discussion that ensued was the first 10 words: “To get to live out your dreams is very special.”
What are those dreams?
Scheffler was once asked what it would mean to be one of Stricker’s selections at Whistling Straits. His answer? “That would be fantastic, it’s definitely something that I’m looking forward to. It would be a dream come true.”
Four years later, there’s no waiting around for a captain’s pick. Scheffler was the first player to lock up an automatic spot on the U.S. Team at Bethpage Black, where he’ll look to avoid the despair he felt after the shellacking in 2023, and instead replicate the elation he’s grown accustomed to in the 24 months since.
Some sweet revenge in the form of a U.S. Ryder Cup victory might not fulfill the deepest levels of his soul, but don’t mistake that for a lack of caring. A fateful moment on the back of a golf cart at Marco Simone is bulletproof evidence to the contrary.