Tour Confidential: What number of wins can Scottie Scheffler get in 2024?

Verify in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the most well liked matters within the sport, and be part of the dialog by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we focus on Scottie Scheffler’s dominance (once more…), Rory McIlroy’s headspace, Nelly Korda’s latest slide and extra.

1. Scottie Scheffler beat Tom Kim on the primary playoff gap to win the Travelers Championship to safe his sixth win of the season — essentially the most since Tiger Woods gained six in 2009 and essentially the most earlier than July since Arnold Palmer in 1962. With roughly 5 begins remaining within the 2024 season, what number of extra wins do you assume Scheffler can realistically get?

Josh Sens, senior author (@joshsens): 5. Not being cheeky right here. May occur. Odds counsel in any other case, as he has solely gained a bit of greater than ⅓ of his begins to date this 12 months. So perhaps he’ll simply seize two or three. However Scheffler working the slate wouldn’t shock me. 

Jack Hirsh, assistant editor (@JR_HIRSHey): Sens, I imply this in essentially the most respectful manner attainable, however you’re off your rocker right here! There’s solely 9 extra tournaments plus the Olympics! I say two. My guess is that he gained’t even play the Scottish Open so he’s solely going to make 4 extra begins. I say he wins the Open and grabs the Tour Championship along with his two-shot headstart. Appears a bit of unfair that he has essentially the most FedEx Cup factors ever underneath this format and he’ll solely be begin in that staggered begin format (of which I’m a fan of) two forward, however I suppose they’ll’t simply hand him $25 million.

James Colgan, information and options editor (@jamescolgan26): Ooo, love a great, old style debate. I’ll take a middle-man reply of three.5 wins, but when Scottie proves his high-ball recreation can mesh nicely with hyperlinks golf, Sens might be trying actual good in a month.

Sens: Properly, if he solely had 4 begins then after all he can’t win 5. The query was whether or not it’s sensible, outlined as being inside the bounds of purpose. Doesn’t imply it is going to occur. But it surely actually might. Let’s make it a pleasant wager, Jack. If he wins greater than two, you apologize publicly for disrespecting your elders. If he doesn’t, i’ll purchase you a brand new lunchbox. 

Hirsh: Wow, wow, wow, you say he’s going to every of his subsequent four-five begins, but you win if he wins three? I’ll take that wager, however provided that it’s he wins all of his begins vs. two or fewer. Three is a push! Additionally, I’m assuming we’re speaking a Cypress Level brand’d lunch field, sure?

Sens: I used to be considering Thomas the Tank Engine.

2. 5 of Scheffler’s six wins have are available non-majors, which suggests there have been no LIV Golf members competing. Years from now, when the PGA Tour/LIV mud (presumably) settles, won’t having these full fields with the very best gamers on the planet do something to devalue what’s been a historic season?

Sens: Scheffler has been astounding. However as a result of that is sports activities, the place all matters get picked over and argued about in granular element, I feel there must be an asterisk included. Bryson DeChambeau beat Scheffler the final two occasions they went face to face. How might there not be? However will probably be a really small asterisk, talked about by solely essentially the most irritable of cranks. And as with most sports-related debates of that sort, anybody who will get too labored up about it ought to in all probability discover higher issues to do with their life. 

Hirsh: I feel an asterisk is a bit of robust. Possibly a bit of, however he did beat everybody* on the Masters and if he beats everybody once more at Troon it gained’t matter. What he’s doing is absurd regardless of who he’s taking part in towards.

*Talor Gooch didn’t play within the Masters.

Colgan: You guys are nuts. Scottie is taking part in on the highest degree of any participant alive proper now. Interval. Finish of story. It’d add some luster if he’d gained all of those occasions towards LIV gamers, however six wins in a 12 months is six wins in a 12 months. It’s rattling spectacular, and it’s NOT incomes an asterisk any time quickly.

Hirsh: Don’t lump me in with Sens! I mentioned just a bit, however agree with you that it doesn’t detract from what he’s doing and would solely add if LIV gamers have been within the PGA Tour fields he’s crushed.

3. One participant who wasn’t on the Vacationers Championship was Rory McIlroy, who withdrew one day after his U.S. Open loss. In a press release on his social accounts, McIlroy congratulated Bryson DeChambeau, mentioned he’ll stew over his quick misses on 16 and 18 and that he was going to “take just a few weeks away from the sport to course of every part and construct myself again up” earlier than returning for the Genesis Scottish Open and Open Championship. He additionally added that he feels “nearer to successful my subsequent main championship than I ever have.” After what you noticed at Pinehurst, do you agree or disagree with that?

Sens: I might assume McIlroy has to inform himself that. I hope he’s proper. If we’re taking the optimistic view, we might give attention to 2011, when he collapsed on the Masters after which bounced again in his very subsequent main begin to win the US Open. He’s too gifted to not get himself again into competition in a biggie. However I don’t know the way you might argue that the devastating finish at Pinehurst has put him nearer to successful a serious. If something, it has to have put extra hobgoblins in his head. 

Hirsh: I don’t assume anybody would argue that Rory McIlroy is a much better participant now than he was 10 years in the past. Nevertheless, the wins within the largest levels are simply not coming. It feels a bit of like the way you learn to putt. Children are at all times nice putters as a result of they don’t have reminiscences of misses weighing down on them. As they miss an increasing number of putts of their life, they turn out to be tentative and terrified of lacking. They play to not lose. Seems like Rory performs to not lose so much. On the similar time, I might not be shocked in any respect if he wins the Open.

Colgan: I really agree with Rory’s sentiment right here. On this decade-long stretch of main championship heartbreak, we’ve solely seen Rory within the driver’s seat twice. A kind of occasions (the a hundred and fiftieth Open) he received beat; the opposite (Pinehurst) he beat himself. These alternatives are finite, however the way in which he performed for the primary 15 holes on Sunday was in contrast to something we’ve seen since 2014. If you happen to’re in McIlroy’s sneakers, optimism is the one manner ahead.

4. Amy Yang had 21 high 10s in 74 profession majors performed earlier than she lastly gained her first, when she pulled away from the sphere on the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship at Sahalee Nation Membership outdoors of Seattle, Wash. The place does the tree-lined and tight Sahalee rank amongst your favourite (or least favourite) main venues?

Hirsh: Golf within the Pacific Northwest simply guidelines. Why? As a result of it’s completely different. The place else are you going to see timber that huge and that slender, however the important thing that makes Sahalee honest is that the limbs aren’t overhanging. It’s principally evergreen timber the place it’s clear the place it’s good to hit it. I really like the problem Sahalee introduced as a result of it requested you to slender your margin for error. Goal small, miss small as they are saying. The final two ladies’s main hosts have been house runs in the identical 12 months they get to play St. Andrews.

Sens: Aesthetically, I’m with Jack. It’s a distinct look, and a lovely one. From a method standpoint, it’s not as fascinating as another main venues. The ‘angles’ crowd have some extent once they gripe about Sahalee. But it surely’s a course with a cool sense of place, and it made for a pleasant change of tempo. 

Hirsh: Certain, it doesn’t current the choices to hit all completely different sorts of photographs like Pinehurst does. But it surely does drive you to be exact and hit it in the best spot. Is it not price one thing from a strategic standpoint?

Colgan: Sorry to our readers within the PNW, however I’d be okay if main championship golf by no means returned to Sahalee. We should always demand our main hosts take a look at all components of a participant’s recreation: from precision and shot-making to temerity and strategic intelligence. Sahalee received half the way in which there, nevertheless it fell quick the place it mattered.

5. After successful 5 straight begins — and 6 in a seven-tournament span — Nelly Korda has now missed the cut in her last three starts, with two of these six rounds within the 80s. Have you ever seen one thing completely different from her this previous month? What’s occurring?

Hirsh: May simply be extra exhaustion than she is letting on. Profitable is tough. Heck, golf is tough. You by no means personal it, you may solely hire it. You discover one thing for a pair months and then you definately lose it. She might get it again subsequent week. She might by no means get it again. That’s simply the fact of the fickle recreation we love. 

Sens: Simply earlier than her latest torrid run, she took a self-imposed break to recharge. My greatest guess is she might use one other a kind of, golf being 90 % psychological and 10 % psychological. 

Colgan: I’ve seen one thing completely different. Nelly has withstood some withering critiques of her public picture, witnessed her recreation fail her at two main championship exams, and has nonetheless spoken truthfully and eloquently after every of these failures. Competitively, she’s in a rut. However after a lot speak about her standing because the face of the game juxtaposed towards her introverted persona, it’s fairly superior to see her placing her cash the place her mouth is.

6. Cameron Younger shot an 11-under 59 during the third round of the Travelers to file the thirteenth sub-60 rating in Tour historical past. Jim Furyk remains to be the one participant with a 58, though 4 gamers have been really higher in relation to par (13 underneath) than Furyk’s 58 (12 underneath). Let’s have some enjoyable and cut up hairs: is one particular sub-60 spherical higher than the remainder? Or is the reply Furyk regardless?

Hirsh: Sure, completely some sub-60 rounds are higher than others. There’s a purpose programs have “aggressive course information.” Circumstances and setups matter. I don’t assume Furyk’s 58 is the very best one. Analytics counsel Al Geiberger’s 59, the primary sub-60 spherical in 1977, was the very best from a strokes gained perspective (Younger’s was the worst… least greatest). I agree with Brandel Chamblee’s take that David Duval’s 59 in Palm Springs, in a closing spherical to win a event, was the very best given the entire circumstances.

Sens: What Jack mentioned. If all 59s have been created equal, we’d have to incorporate the one I posted at Captain Hook’s putt-putt in Myrtle Seashore. 

Colgan: I shot 57 in entrance of Josh Sens at Kingston Heath just a few months in the past. Disgrace no person remembers it, even when it was solely on the entrance 9.

Sens: I keep in mind it as a result of I misplaced to you by one.