Xander Schauffele or Scottie Scheffler for PGA Tour Player of the Year?
We have to start this article with a few confessions: we remain eternally jealous of our colleagues And media center brothers Spending their July wandering the Scottish links courses, and try as we might, we have not been able to muster any enthusiasm for the 3M Open. We appreciate your understanding and have instead chosen to write up and publish a conversation that began on Sunday during the end of the Open Championship.
Hugh Kellenberger: Let’s start here: The race for the men’s golfer of the year has gone from a Scottie Scheffler coronation to a race between Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. The latter made it a talking point with his thrilling victory at the Open Championship, jumping from “best player never to win a major” to “a guy who can win half the majors in a given year” in one season. But I’m curious, Gabby, is performance in the majors the only metric that matters in this race, at least to you?
Gabby Herzig: This is a tough question, because I’m definitely in the camp that majors define a career, but do they — and should they — define a single season? It’s hard to deny that Scheffler has been dominant all year, even if Schauffele was the better of the lot during two very important weeks. Scheffler’s six wins (compared to Schauffele’s two) include the Players, the Masters and four PGA Tour signature events, one of which came just a week after his blowout victory at Augusta — and we’ve yet to evaluate the playoffs. There’s more than a few data points to consider here, with strokes gained, consistency and non-major wins being just the tip of the iceberg. Should Schauffele’s back-to-back major seasons overshadow all that?
Big: If you decide that, it means that no other event is more important than the four major championships, and while that’s true in the broad sense of a career, there’s a nuance to it on an annual basis. Is Schauffele winning at Valhalla in 2024 automatically more impressive than Scheffler winning at TPC Sawgrass just because we’ve decided that one is a major event and the other isn’t? No, I don’t think so. They’re about equal in almost every other way, including the quality of the field. So if you say that of the five biggest events of the year, each won two, that narrows the gap in this POY conversation. And that’s before we get there: both will be at the Olympics and the Tour Championship. Should we ultimately crown someone based on what they do next week at Le Golf National in Paris?
Golf champion of the year. photo.twitter.com/Ea025M6WL6
— Gabby Herzig (@GabbyHerzig) July 21, 2024
Gaby: That’s where things get tricky — I wouldn’t say any of the remaining events in the 2024 season will have much of an impact on the debate unless Scheffler or Schauffele goes out and wins two or even three more times. So why not just look at the numbers? Scheffler still leads the PGA Tour by a significant margin in total strokes gained — a statistic that’s based purely on week-to-week performance relative to the field. No preconceptions about which tournament means more. Just data. Scheffler averages 2,760 strokes gained, compared to Schauffele’s 2,201. Then the list drops to Rory McIlroy at 1,896. Schauffele passes Scheffler, but he said it himself after winning the PGA: “We’re all climbing this huge mountain. At the top of the mountain is Scottie Scheffler. I won this today, but I’m still nowhere near Scottie in the grand scheme of things.” Player of the Year is determined by a PGA Tour membership vote. If anyone understands how difficult it is to perform at such a high level on a weekly basis, it is Scheffler and Schauffele’s colleagues.
Big: Right, and it’s that group that picked Patrick Cantlay in 2021 despite not winning a major, and Scheffler a year ago despite not winning a major. What does that mean? I think it’s a Scheffler three-peat, although I’m here to argue that Schauffele deserves his flowers. Gabby, I’ll let you make your choice and then ask you this: Who will be Keegan Bradley’s next vice-captain pick after he selects Webb Simpson on Tuesday?
Keegan Bradley will captain the US Ryder Cup team in 2025. (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
Gaby: I agree with you Hugh. I think they will pick Scheffler. This is the Player of the Year award, not Player of the Majors. But Schauffele deserves all the credit for what he accomplished at Valhalla and Royal Troon. He has crossed the threshold of winning majors and has quickly joined a growing list of active top players with two majors (Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson). Maybe his ability to beat the first two so quickly makes him the best candidate to get to three first?
On to my prediction for the Ryder Cup vice-captain. On Tuesday, we saw three-time U.S. team member Bradley Simpson selected as his first appointment. The choice aligns perfectly with what Bradley shared about his intentions when he was first announced as captain: he wants to surround his team with younger voices who will be there, week after week, interacting and building relationships with his potential members. I don’t think we’ll see the next vice-captain choice for a while, as I have a feeling it will be Rickie Fowler. When I covered the selection process for Bradley, I was told that Fowler’s name was part of the conversation about who might be next captain. If Fowler doesn’t somehow turn his game around (he’s ranked 43rd in the U.S. Ryder Cup team rankings), it’s a no-brainer for Bradley to bring him on board. He’s played in five Ryder Cups, but he’s only 35, and all the guys — and the fans — love him. Other than Tiger Woods, who’s a complete question mark at this point, who could be better?
Big: Rickie Fowler, vice-captain in charge of vibes with a secondary emphasis on hydration. I can get behind that.
(Photos: Patrick Smith, Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
