What number of wins can Scottie Scheffler get in 2024?

Verify in each week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the most well liked subjects within the sport, and be a 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 Vacationers 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 suppose Scheffler can realistically get?

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

Jack Hirsh, assistant editor (@JR_HIRSHey): Sens, I imply this in essentially the most respectful means doable, however you might be 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 little bit unfair that he has essentially the most FedEx Cup factors ever below this format and he’ll solely be begin in that staggered begin format (of which I’m a fan of) two forward, however I assume they will’t simply hand him $25 million.

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

Sens: Effectively, if he solely had 4 begins then after all he can’t win 5. The query was whether or not it’s life like, outlined as being throughout the bounds of cause. Doesn’t imply it can occur. Nevertheless it 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 guess, 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 emblem’d lunch field, sure?

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

2. 5 of Scheffler’s six wins have are available non-majors, which implies there have been no LIV Golf members competing. Years from now, when the PGA Tour/LIV mud (presumably) settles, is not going to 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 subjects get picked over and argued about in granular element, I feel there must be an asterisk included. Bryson DeChambeau beat Scheffler the final two instances 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 most likely discover higher issues to do with their life. 

Hirsh: I feel an asterisk is a little bit robust. Possibly a little bit, 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 enjoying towards.

*Talor Gooch didn’t play within the Masters.

Colgan: You guys are nuts. Scottie is enjoying 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 yr is six wins in a yr. 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 in the future 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 a number of weeks away from the sport to course of every thing 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 suppose McIlroy has to inform himself that. I hope he’s proper. If we’re taking the optimistic view, we might concentrate on 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 understand how you would 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 suppose anybody would argue that Rory McIlroy is a much better participant now than he was 10 years in the past. Nonetheless, the wins within the largest levels are simply not coming. It feels a little bit like the way you learn to putt. Children are all the time nice putters as a result of they don’t have recollections of misses weighing down on them. As they miss an increasing number of putts of their life, they grow to be tentative and petrified of lacking. They play to not lose. Appears like Rory performs to not lose lots. 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 instances (the a hundred and fiftieth Open) he received beat; the opposite (Pinehurst) he beat himself. These alternatives are finite, however the best way he performed for the primary 15 holes on Sunday was in contrast to something we’ve seen since 2014. When you’re in McIlroy’s sneakers, optimism is the one means 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 sector on the KPMG Girls’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 totally 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 you’ll want to hit it. I really like the problem Sahalee introduced as a result of it requested you to slender your margin for error. Purpose small, miss small as they are saying. The final two ladies’s main hosts have been house runs in the identical yr they get to play St. Andrews.

Sens: Aesthetically, I’m with Jack. It’s a unique look, and a gorgeous one. From a technique standpoint, it’s not as fascinating as another main venues. The ‘angles’ crowd have a degree after they gripe about Sahalee. Nevertheless it’s a course with a cool sense of place, and it made for a pleasant change of tempo. 

Hirsh: Positive, it doesn’t current the choices to hit all totally different sorts of photographs like Pinehurst does. Nevertheless it does pressure you to be exact and hit it in the correct 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 must 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 best way 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 reduce in her final three begins, with two of these six rounds within the 80s. Have you ever seen one thing totally different from her this previous month? What’s occurring?

Hirsh: Might simply be extra exhaustion than she is letting on. Successful is tough. Heck, golf is tough. You by no means personal it, you’ll be able to solely hire it. You discover one thing for a pair months and then you definitely 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 type of, golf being 90 p.c psychological and 10 p.c psychological. 

Colgan: I’ve seen one thing totally different. Nelly has withstood some withering critiques of her public picture, witnessed her recreation fail her at two main championship checks, 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 throughout the third spherical of the Vacationers to report the thirteenth sub-60 rating in Tour historical past. Jim Furyk continues to be the one participant with a 58, though 4 gamers have been really higher in relation to par (13 below) than Furyk’s 58 (12 below). Let’s have some enjoyable and cut up hairs: is one particular sub-60 spherical higher than the remaining? Or is the reply Furyk regardless?

Hirsh: Sure, completely some sub-60 rounds are higher than others. There’s a cause programs have “aggressive course data.” Circumstances and setups matter. I don’t suppose Furyk’s 58 is the very best one. Analytics recommend 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 ultimate 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 Seaside. 

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

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