(Reuters) – Masters champion Scottie Scheffler said on Tuesday that despite figuring out a winning formula that has produced one of the best runs in recent memory, he remains as hungry as ever going into this week’s PGA Championship.
World number one Scheffler, a co-favourite for this week’s PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club, said other than more requests for his autographs and people hollering his name, life has remained mostly the same.
“Winning the Masters is a huge honour for me and we’ve definitely been able to enjoy that a little bit,” Scheffler said at his pre-tournament news conference. “After a little while, it’s kind of back to business and so I’ve been preparing and getting ready for this week.”
In his last major, Scheffler enjoyed the biggest win of his career with a three-stroke Masters victory in April to extend an impressive run during which he won four times in six starts.
Scheffler, fresh off a share of 15th place at last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson, now hopes his immaculate short game and is one of the best putters on tour
The 25-year-old Scheffler is one of just five players to finish among the top 10 at the last two PGA Championships and this year has the good fortune of playing on a layout he has often touted as his favourite course.
Scheffler played two college events at Southern Hills — including in 2015 when he won the Big 12 Championship while competing for the University of Texas — one amateur event and a recent practice round to get a feel for how it has changed.
“This is a golf course you can show up for the first time and know exactly where to hit the ball; there’s not really many tricks to it,” said Scheffler.
“You’ve just got to show up and hit good golf shots and stay in position because once you get out of position this golf course will punish you in a hurry.”
A win this week for Scheffler would put him in a club with Ben Hogan (1953), Arnold Palmer (1960), Jack Nicklaus (1972), Tiger Woods (2002) and Jordan Spieth (2015) as the only golfers to start a year with wins at the first two major championships.
Scheffler will play the first two rounds alongside world number two Jon Rahm and British Open champion Collin Morikawa.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
