CHARLOTTE — It is difficult to imagine the feeling Scottie Scheffler must have had as the minutes and hours passed before his 2:40 p.m. tee time on Sunday at the PGA Championship. These major mornings have always felt long to him, so he did his best to sleep in. Yet with a 1-year-old at home, there’s only so much he could do. Things simplify when he arrives at the course, but there is nothing simple about a major Sunday. As Scheffler said later, he has worked his whole life for these opportunities, and when they come, there is no escaping the enormity. When things become this momentous, he catches himself wishing he didn’t care as much as he does, that he could shrug off a loss, that he wasn’t “kind of a crazy person” in chasing down his dreams. But in the end, the game just means too much. This is his endless pursuit.
Did he have some level of comfort inside all the tension, anticipation, expectation? Did he think about how it would bolster his legacy to win a new major outside Augusta National? If an intrusive thought came—what if you blow it?—how did he manage? Was he close to nausea, close to tears? Did he wish time would move faster?
Ted Scott showed up with the gold-and-black bag on the left side of the driving range at 1:49, a few feet away from Jon Rahm in his bright pink Callaway hat. The “Scottie Scheffler” placard was already on the grass, and a moment later, from the direction of the putting green, the promised man appeared. There’s a bigness to Scheffler, an imposing solidity, and if he lacks the leonine grace of a Dustin Johnson, he makes up for it with the impression of sheer power. Even his jaw, prominent but rounded, speaks of an oak-like sturdiness. No golfer, maybe ever, has looked more like a jock.
He looked sharp, too, in his khakis, blue Nike shirt, white Nike hat, white Nike shoes. A long bottle of Gatorade water lay on the grass behind him, and his longtime coach Randy Smith watched him swing from various angles, beginning with the wedges. Peering down the range, you could spot, in order, Rahm, Si Woo Kim, Davis Riley, Gary Woodland, Alex Noren and Tom Kim. Behind him, a CBS spotter spoke into his radio: