SAINT QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES – Scottie Scheffler picked a good time to remodel his golf room at his home in Dallas, an office where he keeps trophies and a Masters green jacket, special memorabilia and space to tinker with his golf clubs.
He started winning, and then winning some more. He collected six PGA Tour trophies through June, the most of anyone since Arnold Palmer in 1962.
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“We built a couple additional shelves,” Scheffler said Monday. “We were redoing the room as I was winning a bunch and so we just kind of had to continue to adjust, which was a pretty fun thing to be able to do.”
An Olympic gold medal would be a nice addition, and it wouldn't even take up much room.
That's what Scheffler has set out to do at Le Golf National, where the men's competition starts on Thursday with its strongest field since golf returned to the Olympic program in 2016.
Scheffler, the No. 1 player in golf since May of last year, leads a 60-man field that features the top seven players in the world ranking. He is the favorite, as he has been all year, although he now faces a significant challenge from PGA and British Open champion Xander Schauffele.
Hideki Matsuyama considers Scheffler the benchmark.
“To win any medals, we need to beat Scottie and Xander Schauffele, the best players,” he said.
Scheffler and Schauffele played 18 holes on Sunday when they arrived, teeing off about 30 minutes apart. They joined the other Americans — Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark — for nine holes on Monday.
Scheffler, who won the Masters for the second time this year, sees a lot of similarities with Schauffele, who delivered a masterpiece in the final round at Royal Troon two weeks ago to win the British Open.
“I love seeing people like him have success because he does it the right way. He works hard. He's not full of himself,” Scheffler said. “We were playing a practice round today and I was actually thinking about it. Xander is the exact same today after winning the tournament as he was if he had lost the tournament by one.”
That's been Scheffler's mantra since he began this blistering pace two years ago. Golf is what he plays, it's not what defines him. He separates home from work.
“I’ve just been out here competing and I’ve been fortunate to have a few wins, but when I show up to a tournament, I don’t feel any different,” Scheffler said. “I’m not trying to be any different. I don’t show up acting like the No. 1 player in the world. I don’t show up as anybody other than myself, and I just try to do my best to compete.”
The additional attention has been a challenge, and Scheffler got a taste of that over the weekend when he went to the Louvre with his family. He was stunned by the size and the amount of people, and he felt he saw only a fraction of the museum in two hours.
Scheffler wasn't part of the attraction, but he did not go unnoticed.
“I definitely saw a few people looking at me weird,” he said. “It wasn't like I got recognized in a crowded room and all of a sudden I had to take like a hundred pictures. One person would come up, and a few minutes later another person would. ... No big deal.”
If there was a chance to get a big head, it would be that remodeled golf room.
In the last five months, he has added another Masters trophy along with The Players Championship and four “signature events” against the strongest field. If friends come over and want to see the green jacket, he'll take them to his office.
“But for the most part, I go there to work on my clubs and practice a bit,” he said.
There was one brief moment when Scheffler allowed for a little reflection. His wife, Meredith, was in the other room and Scheffler jokingly grabbed his Masters green jacket and his plaid jacket from winning at Hilton Head.
“I held The Players trophy in one hand, and I had another trophy in the other hand and walked in the living room like, ‘Wassup, Mere,'" he said with a laugh.
That's the extent of it. He married his high school girlfriend. They had their first child in May. He plays golf for a living and has produced an elite tee-to-green game at a level not seen since the peak years of Tiger Woods. In his eyes, nothing has changed but the number of trophies and earnings that top $28 million.
Now it's about a medal, not money.
Scheffler is taking in as much of the Olympic experience as possible. He was at table tennis on Sunday and plans to see gymnastics on Tuesday. And then it's all about golf.
Players are still trying to gauge the value of a gold medal in a sport where the emphasis is on four majors each year.
“It would be very special to have the gold medal. If I don't, my life is certainly not going to end,” Scheffler said. “But it would be extremely special, and it's one of the reasons why I'm here. I love going to watch table tennis. But that's not why I showed up.”
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AP Olympic coverage: https://apnewscom/hub/2024-paris-olympics-games