Scottie Scheffler is the best golfer in the world, and he didn’t waste much time in 2026 reminding everyone of that fact. He’s ranked world number one, he won two Major tournaments last year, and he just reached his 20th career victory in pretty quick fashion.
Scottie Scheffler takes American Express crown
In his first PGA Tour start of the season, Scottie Scheffler put on an absolute show. At the American Express, he shot a final-round six-under to move to an astonishing -27 for the weekend. That was four shots clear of Ryan Gerard and Matt McCarty, tied at -23.
Scheffler hadn’t really played a true tournament since September 14, when he won the Procore Championship. He expected to be a little rusty coming off the long break, although he did play at the Hero World Challenge.
“There’s always a certain amount of rust when it comes to playing competitive golf,” Scheffler said via ESPN. “You can simulate as best you can at home, but you can only get into the heat of the moment when you’re posting a score and you’re in contention when you’re at a tournament. So it’s nice to see some of the stuff that I’ve been being practicing and working on has paid off.”
He now has 20 PGA Tour titles and four Majors. In doing so, he joined Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only golfers to do that before turning 30. “Pretty wild,” Scheffler he said. “It’s been a great start to my career. It’s been special. I try not to think about that stuff too much. I was just trying to do the things I needed to do to be prepared.”
Opponents chime in
Blades Brown, an 18-year-old playing in his first start, gave Scheffler a run for his money before the world number one pulled away. He had played eight straight rounds of Tour-sanctioned golf between this and a Korn Ferry event.
“Eight rounds I know sounds like a lot, but I was having a lot of fun,” he said. “You’re telling me I get to play in a PGA Tour event and to play with Scottie Scheffler and see him win it, that was insane,” the 18-year-old golfer said. “I got some things I got to sharpen up, and hopefully we see if we can do what Scottie’s doing.”
“I would say one of the coolest things that I learned today was how underrated Scottie Scheffler’s short game is,” Brown continued. “To see it in person and just to look at kind of the trajectory and the spin, and just the control that he has with his wedges and short game. Obviously, his putting is insane, too. It was really cool to watch. So I’m definitely going to go work on that.”
Scheffler has won four of his last six starts and seven of his last 13. He’s on an outstanding hot streak. Others are not noticing how good he is for the first time, but they are noticing how impressive he is by continuously playing well.
“It seems like he never wants to relax,” said Jason Day. “He always does his work, needs to do whatever he needs to do to be able to prepare, and he’s always around the lead. And that’s a very, very difficult thing to do with how much distractions there can be, especially at No. 1.”
This was considered the strongest American Express field in many years. Yet, Scheffler cleared them all with relative ease. He even took a double bogey on the 17th after going into the water. However, by that point, the result was all but decided.
Scottie Scheffler will take a week off. Then, he’ll be back in action at the WM Phoenix Open. It was there, arguably, that he got off to this career-defining run four years ago.
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