Scottie Scheffler took his right arm back, arched his back backwards to the point where that arm was just above the back of his right knee, with his left leg planted forward – and threw.
A good hand wedge.
Maybe even a hand 9.
But a good cleanup. Now his ball had taken root among the trees near the 11th green of the Riviera Country Club, where, two years ago at the Genesis Invitational, Scheffler had just sent a four-foot birdie putt past the hole.
The point here, though, aside from asking, could the top-ranked golfer also have been a quarterback for his hometown Dallas Cowboys?
What’s the point?
If playing golf makes us so frustrated, why play golf? There are clearly other activities. A ball-in-the-trees payoff sounds unpleasant. Scheffler said Wednesday he doesn’t even have a good method to measure how good he is.
But maybe not being enclosed isn’t liberating. Perhaps incommensurability is undeniably good.
Scheffler’s press conference ahead of this week’s Genesis Invitational was unusual, to say the least. The session was reflective. Golf, he said, offers unlimited opportunities to learn. And if you’re a learning type like him – “my mind has always been my greatest tool,” he said – then that’s as welcome as a sunny day for a weekend teetime.
“I think that’s why we keep practicing,” Scheffler said. “You never get to a place where you feel like you’ve got it figured out. I always like to practice and try to improve and make new shots.
“I think golf is kind of an endless quest to figure something out and I’ll never achieve that, but there’s no harm in trying.”
Scheffler brought up rounds with Jordan Spieth, a fellow pro and longtime friend he often plays with.
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“You’re saying that golf is kind of an endless quest to invent this game,” Scheffler said.
“I play with Jordan a lot at home. I can learn so much just by watching Jordan and asking questions about the way he plays shots, and he does some things that work really well for him, that wouldn’t work well for me, and then certain ways he approaches things. I like to ask questions and try to figure things out.”
Genesis Invitational start times Thursday 2026: Round 1 groups
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Kevin Cunningham
But what about defeats?
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This poetic explanation will keep you coming back for more.
“When it comes to competing in golf tournaments,” Scheffler said, “I can’t control what the other guy I’m playing with does. For example, let’s say I’m tied going into the last round and I shoot 62 and the guy shoots 61. Yes, I can certainly look at a few shots that I would like to have back, but at the end of the day the tournament is over and you take off your hat, shake hands and say congratulations.
“The great thing about golf is that often we can just show up the next week and start all over again and compete again.”
Over time, friendships even develop.
‘It’s like looking at someone like Collin [Morikawa] Last week,” Scheffler said. “I’ve been competing against Collin since we were 14 years old. He wins a tournament, he announces that he is pregnantand suddenly you have this: it’s such a cool moment to see a guy who’s been playing really good golf for the last few years and hasn’t quite gotten the results and the wins yet, but he’s been playing golf pretty consistently, and then he gets to announce that he’s having a kid. It’s this moment, it’s like, wow. I tried as hard as I could, got beat and it’s like, man, that’s awesome. You won, congratulations.
“You’re having a baby, even bigger congratulations. Then we’ll be here this week and the preparation will just start again.”
So yes, the same goes for moments when you throw a ball into the trees.
On to the next hole. On to the next tournament. This is where it gets really good.
The 2024 Genesis was the last tournament Scheffler played with the blade putter he used to hit that putt on 11.
And since then he has won fourteen events, including three majors.
“When things don’t go as planned,” Scheffler said, “I think it’s healthy to have some level of frustration about that, just because it takes so much work to get out of it, and especially when you feel like you’re doing something right and doing things the right way and not getting results.
“I think it can always be frustrating, but I think it’s part of the game of golf that you can manage that to get the next shot.”
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