'If he putts well, he wins' is an overused phrase in the sport of golf, even if it isn't used all that often. Anyone who follows the game will appreciate that it is too simplistic, that it fails to account for that ruinous mistake, the misfortune of a bad draw, or one of the thousands of other ways an otherwise exceptional display can come undone.
If Scottie Scheffler putts well, however, he really does win. That was reaffirmed by his wide-margin romp at Bay Hill, but had been clear for some time. In fact, since the beginning of 2022, nobody has beaten Scheffler when he's been among the top 20 putters in the field. Thankfully for his rivals and maybe even the sport, that's happened just five times, six if we count the Hero, seven if we assume he was in the Match Play.
The eighth title he's collected during this formidable stretch was the 2023 PLAYERS Championship, where Scheffler ranked a mere 47th in putting – and won by five shots. Through this we can establish a better maxim for the PGA Tour of today: as long as Scottie Scheffler doesn't putt really badly, he's going to be difficult to beat.
The narrative, of course, is that he has now solved his putting woes thanks to a switch to the mallet and removal of an alignment line on his golf ball. Having done so prior to the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scheffler got better with every round and ranked first on Sunday. Turn the best ball-striker on the PGA Tour into the best putter and you really can begin to talk in terms of dominance, which we've not been able to do for at least a decade.
Will it last, and whether it's advisable to bet on it lasting, are extremely difficult questions to answer. Perhaps the sensible approach is to only attempt short-term conclusions, and take note of two key facts: one is that he's won the Phoenix Open and the Arnold Palmer twice each. The other is that his wins have come in bursts: four in six in the spring of '22, two in four in the spring of '23, and now two in seven since the Ryder Cup.
Put all of that together and you have a compelling argument and I won't waste long arguing both sides of the price. Scheffler merits it, and those who wish to simplify this tournament to a confident each-way bet have strong grounds for doing so. But it is Cheltenham Festival week, and just as no trainer should run scared of one horse, no golf bettor should take anything for granted.
That the PLAYERS Championship title has never been successfully defended shouldn't really bother anyone too much, though it does have something to do with the course I suspect. TPC Sawgrass, Pete and Alice Dye's iconic course that is the home of the PGA Tour, catches everyone out eventually.
It's probably not as difficult as its reputation – every winner since 2009 has reached double-digits under-par – but it is penal, dramatically so throughout a closing stretch which may be unrivalled in terms of the marriage of course and situation. Holes 16, 17 and 18 all threaten absolute disaster, but as Rickie Fowler so famously demonstrated, they can also provide opportunities enough for someone to steal this title through sheer brilliance.
Eighth place at Bay Hill was Homa's best finish of the season so far and it's a sign of how far he's come that, despite some decent results at Riviera (16th) and Torrey Pines (13th), he was extremely disappointed with how he played out on the west coast.
When asked on Sunday to reflect on the improvements made following work with his coach, Mark Blackburn, he said: "Really pleased. Wish I would have made more of a push on the weekend, but from how poor my golf game felt on the west coast to how good it felt this week, I'm really intrigued and optimistic about that."
In fact patchy is flattering, as he did nothing from 2015 to 2022, but last year's 19th was a step back in the right direction and he's since made further improvements in his game.
Spieth's driving let him down at Bay Hill but the numbers alone don't tell the full story, as it was just a couple of bad shots at the wrong time that undermined some good work generally. He was for the most part accurate, ranking 12th in fairways, but the misses were heavily penalised.
His only misstep this year came when selected at Riviera but 12th place at Bay Hill, in a tournament he's only played three times on the PGA Tour, was a swift return to form and saw him strike the ball particularly well over the first 36 holes.
He'll have been frustrated not to have seen it out better but Thomas will also know that he returns to Sawgrass with his best chance to win it since he did that with a sparkling weekend in 2021, when we were on at around the 20/1 mark.
His title defence was undone by the draw and his next go by the putter, but he's been better with that club lately, producing five top-30 putting performances in seven dating back to his return to form in the Wyndham Championship.
Harman actually hasn't been at his best on the greens lately but anyone who recalls that Hoylake romp will recognise his potential to improve, and he was pretty deadly just a couple of months ago in Hawaii.
Fifth and 18th to begin the year, he predictably dipped during the west coast swing and a trip to the Middle East, but was back on track when back on the east coast with 12th place at Bay Hill.
We've not yet had an English winner of The PLAYERS and it's asking a lot for it to happen now, given Tyrrell Hatton's defection, the form of Matt Fitzpatrick, and a shocking performance from Tommy Fleetwood at Bay Hill.
Rose though was doing OK there before three-putting the 10th and 11th holes on Friday, latterly from inside five feet. That seemed to bleed into the 12th hole, where he was greenside in two shots and walked off having carded an eight.
Recovering from that to contend for this won't be straightforward but it was just a mad hour of short-game silliness and I was quite encouraged by his ball-striking, particularly in round two.
Rai was 19th on his PLAYERS debut having sat fourth entering the final round, and he'd not exactly been lighting it up throughout the early stages of 2023.
Perhaps that effort had something to do with the fact that he's chosen to base himself at Sawgrass since moving to the US, practising at the course and even buying a house five minutes down the road. For a debutant, he knew plenty about what was required.
One of the most precise ball-strikers around and having beaten elite Europeans for his two wins on the DP World Tour, Rai's form book on the PGA Tour underlines the suitability of this type of test, having been third in Canada, ninth in Detroit and 12th at Colonial.
Since those efforts he's chased home Ryan Fox at Wentworth and I quite like how he's played since the PGA Tour season began, with 19 rounds of par or better from 21 played, not always under conditions he'd consider favourable.
That's true of the last two tournaments he's played in, both on wide-open resort courses, and while the field here is much stronger, the nature of the test ought to bring his key strengths to the fore. An above-average week with the putter on greens he knows well, and Rai could contend again.
Posted at 1700 GMT on 11/03/24
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