'You lose more than you win'

On the eve of The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush, the world number one and most dominant player since Tiger Woods made headlines for querying the point of it all.

Four rounds and 21 birdies later, Scottie Scheffler stood on the 18th green with the Claret Jug in one hand and son Bennett in the other, while his rivals were wondering exactly the same thing.

Scheffler admits his unprompted philosophical introspection for meaning followed a deeply personal inner search for his ‘why’.

Why he plays, why he cares and why he invests so much time, effort and energy into being the best in the world.

“It would almost be easier if I didn't want to win this badly,” he said this week at Royal Birkdale.

It was a fascinating insight into the mind of an elite athlete but Scheffler admits he strayed a bit too far.

“I think I'll try to keep that stuff to myself this week,” he added. “It's weird I said that stuff last year.”

Yet he couldn’t resist.

With every interview filmed, clipped up and shared around the world, those in Scheffler’s position can be understandably cautious during press conferences.

But he was asked about the importance of his legacy and could not help but open up once more. And like last year, it was fascinating.

“I don't really play for a place in history,” he said.

“I have never once thought about how I’m going to be remembered.

“To me, it truly doesn’t matter from a sense of accomplishment. Like when I die, ‘hey, Scottie won four majors and 20 tournaments and he won this much money’. That has zero effect on me.

“History to me isn’t that important. I don’t necessarily want to be remembered for winning the tournaments that I won. I’d much rather be remembered for the way that I did it: doing things the right way, treating people the right way.”

Scheffler need not worry. He does plenty of things the right way, especially with a club in hand. And he will always be remembered.

In a warning sign for the rest of the field at Royal Birkdale, a zen Scheffler is a dangerous Scheffler and, for a player not concerned with history, he is certainly making a lot of it.

Since the Official Golf World Rankings started in 1986, only Tiger Woods had arrived as world No.1 and left as the Champion Golfer of the Year, before Scheffler joined him.

He has won four major titles, 18 other PGA TOUR events and an Olympic gold medal. All in four years.

At least week’s Scottish Open, you had to see the leaderboard to believe it and then double check to see it again. Scheffler missed the cut. His first in four years.

It has allowed him extra time at Royal Birkdale, where he hopes to become the first player to successfully defend the Claret Jug since Padraig Harrington on these same fairways and greens 18 years ago.

“It's funny, one of my buddies who plays out here had prepared a long text to me about what you can do when you miss a cut,” he said.

“He was like, ‘Hey, you can practise at the facilities. You can still go to the gym. You can also go to the next tournament’.

“It was basically all my options. He never sent it to me, but he told me about it. I was like, oh, you should have sent it. I was a bit lost.”

By comparison to the last four seasons, 2026 has been a down year for Scheffler.

The 30-year-old won the Desert Classic in January but nothing since, with two play-off defeats at the RBC Heritage and Travelers Championship.

He finished second to Rory McIlroy at the Masters but a slow start left him too much to do, and he missed out by a shot.

He faded from contention at the PGA Championship, while his bid for the career Grand Slam at the US Open never really got going.

“You can't win every single golf tournament,” he added.

“You just can't do it. Nobody's been able to do it. In golf, no matter what, you lose a lot more often than you win.”

And so to Royal Birkdale, with its bleach-blonde fairways, wispy rough and rock-hard greens.

Scheffler has a 9.58am tee time on Thursday, alongside Tyrrell Hatton and Byrson DeChambeau.

He played 18 holes on Sunday, and nine holes on Monday and Tuesday, before captaining his team to victory in the inaugural Heroes Classic.

“The ball's just going to run for forever pretty much,” he said.

“The fairways this week are really tight, so you get a lot of cross-winds. They can be difficult to hold just because they're so fast and they're so firm.

“There's a lot of thinking off the tee needed on whether or not you want to just hit driver up there somewhere and play from the rough, or do you want to start hitting some irons, getting it in some fairways and hitting some longer shots into the greens?

“On each hole there's a good bit of strategy; there's a decent amount of thinking. If it wasn't as firm as it is now, there wouldn't be as much decision-making, but I think with the firmness, it creates a whole lot more challenges.”

Strategy and deep thinking? It sounds like the perfect course for the Champion Golfer of the Year.