Phil Mickelson hit the nail on the head as to why Scottie Scheffler has suffered a poor run of form as the 2024 PGA Tour comes to a close.
While World No. 1 Scheffler started this year’s campaign strong, winning the likes of the Memorial and the RBC Heritage – as well as the first major of the year in The Masters – his form seems to have dithered towards the back end of the tour. Despite being a heavy favourite going into the PGA Championship, The US Open and The Open at Royal Troon, Scheffler was only able to achieve respective T8, T41 and T7 places, and the poor run of form didn’t stop there.
One of his worst finishes on the PGA Tour in total came in the form of this month’s BMW Championship at Castle Pines – finishing with a score of +1 at T33 while Keegan Bradley won the event 12 under. The PGA Tour comes to a close this weekend at the coveted TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club, and Scheffler will hope to finish strong after a mixed-bag of results across the year.
However, the 28-year-old has admitted that the season has took its toll on him performance-wise. When asked: “Can you talk about how difficult it is coming to the end of a long season? It seems like everyone is dealing with something,” at a press conference ahead of the tournament this week, Scheffler responded: “Yeah, I would agree with that.
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“I think everybody is dealing with a little something at the end of the year. It’s been a long season. Especially now with the way the new schedule is, it really is a sprint to get here. There’s not really places in the schedule to take large breaks. You have the beginning of the year where you’re kind of getting warmed up in a sense, even though you’ve pretty much got to start the year ready to go.
“Then March you have The Players; April, Masters; May, PGA; June, U.S. Open; July you have The Open Championship; and then you come to Augusta and you’ve got the FedExCup Playoffs. There’s not really a time of year where you’re taking a break for us until after the Presidents Cup or the Ryder Cup.
Scheffler hasn’t had the best season in terms of wins (Image:Getty Images)
“It definitely is a little bit of a sprint, and I’m sure people got little aches and pains. But didn’t play all year to just get tired at East Lake and kind of just throw in the towel. It’s good competition this week. I think the golf course is going to be pretty challenging, and it should be a fun week.”
And the golfing great’s stance on the PGA calendar and its lack of breaks has previously been used by Mickelson as an argument as to why the controversial LIV league is the best tour to preserve your performances at majors. Taking to X last year, the 54-year-old said: “Love LIV or hate it, it’s the best way/Tour to be your best in the majors.”
He then delivered a 20-word statement which seems to be ringing true for Scheffler especially at present, adding: “Enough events to keep you sharp, fresh and ready, yet not be worn down from too many tournaments or obligations.” Mickelson also added that there were 14 LIV events in 2023, leaving 34 weeks for players to hone in on their s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s for major tournaments.
Mickelson currently plays with LIV Golf (Image:Getty Images)
While PGA stalwarts like Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have openly shared their dislike to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league since its beginnings in 2021, Scheffler has stayed incredibly impartial to it. He has previously said that he has no qualms with players for making the move over to the organisation, but he does believe that there should be a “caveat” if they wish to return to the PGA Tour.
Speaking in February, he said: “I built my entire career here on the PGA Tour and I wasn’t willing to leave it. I dreamt of playing on this tour. Some of the guys that left, maybe that wasn’t for them. But I think that if they want a pathway back, that there should be one, but it definitely shouldn’t just be coming back in the first week they want to come back and play. There should be some sort of caveat to them getting back on our tour.”
A number of big name stars have parted ways with the PGA Tour to play under the lucrative LIV banner, including Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka and this year’s US Open winner, Bryson DeChambeau. HyFlyers GC team captain Mickelson, however, hasn’t had the greatest campaign with the promotion, currently sitting 44th in the ‘Open Zone’ while his team sit at 12th (out of 13 positions) in the leaderboards.
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