PONTE VEDRA BREACH, Fla. — Scottie Scheffler ran towards the 10th tee early Tuesday morning at TPC Sawgrass thinking he was late. Sam Burns, his best friend, had already hit. Ditto Patrick Cantlay. Scheffler arrived, and then Xander Schauffele. He wasn’t late after all. He arrived precisely when he was meant to.  

Scheffler, who has been ranked No. 1 in the world for 128 weeks now and, in two weeks, will have had the longest run at No. 1 after Tiger Woods, is all about the now. He isn’t thinking about last year’s tournament (which he won), or the year before (which he also won) or running to get to his practice game. His focus is laser-like on a singular objective — preparing to go win golf tournaments.  

“Last year is last year. I’m not trying to replicate it. I’m not trying to look back on it. At the end of the day, it’s in the past. It was a great year. I’m tremendously thankful. I lived a full lifetime in a year. A lot of great things happened, and I’m very thankful for that,” Scheffler said. “But when it comes to this year, I’ve never been a guy that sets long-term goals. Like in terms of a season, I have what I would think of as dreams and aspirations, but my goal is to be as prepared as possible when I step up on the first tee and then I want to have a good attitude when I go out and play over each shot. And that’s how I view success.” 

Scheffler won the 2024 Players Championship in stunning come-from-behind fashion, having shot an 8-under 64 in the final round — highlighted by an eagle hole-out from 92 yards on No. 4 to start his day — to win by one over a trio of golfers.  

The win came a week after he had won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and had kickstarted his magical, Player of the Year campaign.  

Scheffler couldn’t have had a worse ending to his 2024, however, as he injured his hand after a Christmastime kitchen incident — an accident that required surgery — forcing him to sit out the first month of the season. He returned at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he finished T9. He added a T3 at The Genesis Invitational and a T11 last week. He is, quite simply, rounding into form. Scheffler said last week his putting let him down, but his ball-striking was back to where it had been last year.  

“I drove it really well. I hit some good iron shots. Some iron shots I wasn’t as pleased with,” Scheffler said about his trip around Bay Hill last week. “But I felt like if the ball would have gone in the hole a little bit more, I would have had a chance to win, which is always a nice thing.” 

So, Scheffler is just warming up — which should be a concerning thing for the rest of the PGA Tour. They know what kind of effort he can showcase when he’s at his best.  

“In my opinion, I think it’s hard to play with him and be like, ‘Oh, I want to play more like Scottie.’ It’s like, ‘No duh, who wouldn’t want to hit a lot of the fairways and a lot of the greens and be the best ball-striker statistically on planet earth for the last couple years?’” said Justin Thomas, himself a winner at TPC Sawgrass. “I think there’s a lot of areas of his game you can obviously choose to try to copy or emulate, but I think his mental side is what separates him more than people realize.” 

Scheffler knows that success is not guaranteed this week despite his body of work here the last two seasons. But he’s prepared as well as he can — his main area of focus — and, finally, feels like he’s positioned for success, no matter how you define it.  

“I think about my attitude on the golf course and my preparation. Those are the two things that I focus on the most,” Scheffler said. “If I can be prepared when I step on the first tee and if I can have a good attitude over each and every shot, that for me is a successful week.”  

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the media Tuesday in his annual state of the Tour address, and this year he took a casual approach to his look — an unbuttoned shirt and vest. No tie. No jacket.  

It wasn’t a casual conversation, however, with plenty of questions about the heavy, overarching topic of what is going on with men’s professional golf right now and in the future. 

A couple of key takeaways from Tuesday:  

On LIV Golf and the PGA Tour –  

“As part of our negotiations, we believe there’s room to integrate important aspects of LIV Golf into the PGA Tour platform. We’re doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together. 

“Disruption has generated momentum, growth and real action.” 

On a deadline with a deal with the Public Investment Fund –  

“I think it’s just not that simple. When you’re in the middle of these negotiations and they’re as complex as they are, you know, the reason I say ‘urgency’ is that that’s what we’re operating with, but there isn’t a concrete deadline that’s been established.” 

On President Trump’s involvement –  

“[The] talks [between LIV and the PGA Tour] have been significantly bolstered by President Trump’s willingness to serve as a facilitator. President Trump is a lifelong golf fan. He believes strongly in the game’s power and potential, and he has been exceedingly generous with his time and influence to help bring a deal together. He wants to see the game reunified. We want to see the game reunified. His involvement has made the prospect of reunification very real.” 

“We will begin publishing speed-of-play-related statistics later this season. We will also begin testing a new speed-of-play policy on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas, beginning next month, on April 14th specifically, which will include assessing penalty strokes for slow play. We will be testing range finders at the six Tour events between the Masters and PGA Championship. We’re excited to learn more about the impact of increased transparency and accountability through these efforts.” 

On the five-year anniversary of The Players being cancelled due to COVID-19 –  

“I just remember being up in the second floor of the clubhouse in a room for what seemed like eternity as the world was changing. I remember Hideki’s incredible round on Thursday (Note: Hideki Matsuyama shot a then-course-record-tying 63 before the tournament was cancelled). I remember having a lot of our partners and peers in the golf industry at my house on Wednesday night and I put my phone down and turned it back on when everybody had left and realized that […] there were shutdowns and the world was changing.” 

SCHAUFFELE WORKING HIS WAY BACK 

Xander Schauffele, if it had been literally any other year than 2024, would have been far and away the Player of the Year. Alas, 2024 was the year of Scottie Scheffler. And even though Schauffele won two majors and had 15 top-10s in 22 events (including three runner-up finishes to go with his victories), he left the year at No. 2 in the world after Scheffler won seven times (and a gold medal). 

He didn’t, however, start the year at all the way he would have liked, having suffered a rib injury, and has sat out for most of the 2025 campaign. Schauffele finally returned to action last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.  

Although he finished the week at 4 over, the fact that he made it through four rounds — he had played only 27 holes in preparation for the whole of the two months prior, nine of those were at a par-3 course, and he hadn’t yet played back-to-back days before his tournament last week — was considered a win.  

Now Schauffele returns to The Players, where he finished one shot back of Scheffler in 2024, for a big week at a big course. 

“Form’s a bit dodgy,” Schauffele admitted. “I think (last week) was a true test. Probably the worst course to come back to after not playing much golf, just from a confidence standpoint. But luckily, I’ll convince myself otherwise. Body feels good and I’m excited to get back into the swing of things.”   

Everyone knows what to expect with TPC Sawgrass, or, at minimum, they know one of the holes. Even the casual sports fan is aware of the Island Green par-3 17th.  

This year, however, there have been some tweaks to the iconic Stadium Course — to the tune of 77 yards of length. Hole Nos. 2, 6, 11, and 16 have all seen length added. No. 6 also had a “diabolical” tree added back (after the previous one was lost to disease in 2014). There’s also a new tee box on No. 9 and some changed-around humps and bumps on the right-hand side of No. 14 (if you hit it there, you’re dead).  

Davis Love III led a broader revitalization project of TPC Sawgrass for this year. Love, who won The Players twice, operated with a simple North Star according to PGATOUR.com — return the course to Pete Dye’s original vision.  

• Scottie Scheffler (+500): What more can you say about the defending champion? Obviously, he’s looking to do something no one has ever done (three-peat at The Players), but he already did something a year ago that had never been done. Scheffler is trending in the right direction not only at TPC Sawgrass but this season and, funnily enough, it seems like he’s due for a win.  

• Ludvig Aberg (+1800): The young Swede just keeps showing up at big events. He won The Genesis Invitational already this year (in the three Signature Events so far in 2025 he’s finished fifth, first, and 22nd), and in his rookie spin at The Players he finished eighth. TPC Sawgrass is set up perfectly for someone with Aberg’s driving prowess and after moving to Jacksonville Beach in October, he now calls TPC Sawgrass his home course.  

• Corey Conners (+5000): The Canadian was so firmly in the mix a week ago at Bay Hill, and TPC Sawgrass possesses a lot of the same design qualities — insofar as you have to be a ball-striking maestro to have success. Conners is exactly that and, thanks to a new prototype putter he’s bagged, he’s rolling the rock better than he ever has in his career. Conners has two top-15s in his last four starts at TPC Sawgrass.  

• Michael Kim (+6600): Kim was lost in the golfing abyss for a few years but has become a complete ATM over the last month-and-a-half. Kim has finished T2-T13-T13-T6-4 in his last five starts.  

Odds via Sports Interaction