Photo credit: Kathryn Ryan/USGA
MODERATOR: Evening, everyone. We would like to welcome Procore Championship winner and World No. 1, Scottie Scheffler.
Scottie, captured your 19th PGA TOUR victory, sixth this season and first in the state of California. How are we feeling after the win?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, feeling good. Overall, it was a good prep week getting ready for the Ryder Cup.
As far as the tournament went, I did some good stuff over the course of four days, especially over the weekend. Felt like my game got better as the week went on and played some really nice golf Saturday and Sunday to be sitting here.
MODERATOR: Coming down the stretch, what was your plan and when did the round really start to pick up for you today?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, my plan was to try and make some birdies but the golf course, the golf course gets really challenging late in the day. The wind picks up, started swirling a little bit, and the greens get pretty challenging. There’s a lot of slope and the afternoon poa is always tough. But overall I think I did a good job, made one bogey today and then bounced back real quick with birdies on 12 and 15. Felt like I really needed to birdie 18, but fortunately par was enough.
Question: Â Â How big of a week is this for you, for your teammates on the Ryder Cup team, winning here, and does it provide some momentum to go back to Bethpage Black with so many of the Ryder Cup players who not only made the cut but really got on that leaderboard and played well?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it was definitely nice to see some of my teammates on the leaderboard. Ben and I had a good battle today. As you said, it was a good prep week, the guys definitely stayed sharp this week.
I always focus as much as I can on my preparation going into tournaments, that’s what gives me confidence, and I feel like I’m as prepared as possible for the Ryder Cup, and I think we’re all excited for the tournament to get started. We’ve got three days in New York to compete and have fun. We’re all looking forward to it.
Question: Piggybacking off that, you said you got what you wanted to out of this week as far as preparation for Bethpage?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don’t really know how to elaborate on that, but it was definitely good prep. It was nice to get all the guys together. We had some fun at the beginning of the week, played our practice rounds together. once the tournament starts it’s pretty much business as usual for us, but overall it was a great week. We could all hang out and stay sharp.
Question: Obviously lighthearted with the jokes about first time in California, but I’m curious do you ever find like little things like that to motivate yourself or little things you want to achieve (inaudible)?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think I try to keep it as simple as possible. I had no idea that I never won in the state of California. It didn’t really bother me very much. I don’t think I’ve won in Oregon or Washington, you know what I mean? I think y’all’s job is to try to find something to write about, which is a good thing for me, I try to stay out of it. Approach each week individually.
This was a week in which I was playing a new golf course, a golf course that was pretty challenging to play for the first time. Did a really good job of kind of staying in the tournament the first two days and then the last two I played some really good golf in order to be in this position.
Question: You had a (inaudible) with Ben as you were walking off, a tough finish. I’m curious over these last two months when a guy starts playing as well as him and suddenly you realize he might be part of the team, do you like have to make an effort to oh, I need to get to know that guy more?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: There would certainly be an aspect to that if, I mean, if he was a very new guy on Tour. Ben’s actually a guy I spent a lot of time with in junior golf. We used to play practice rounds together in junior and amateur golf. He’s been a buddy of mine for a long time.
I feel like the Tour sometimes is just like a little bit of a traveling fraternity. We see the same guys week in and week out. We travel the country and world sometimes together. We have a good time. It does feel like a fraternity at times.
I have some of my best friends in the whole world out here on Tour, and I feel like I know a lot of the guys out here really well. So it would be very rare to have a guy coming into the team room that we didn’t know very well just because we see each other week in, week out out here.
If a guy’s ‑‑ typically if you’re playing well enough to make the team, you’re going to be playing a lot with other guys that are playing good enough to make the team. It would be pretty rare there’s a guy that’s not towards the lead a lot of the time throughout the year, if that makes sense.
Question: Something else as usual but on that note, is it impressive to you at all that the last home Ryder Cup, your debut, that Ben was like filling out his exit papers at a loan mortgage office and here he is?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: You know, I think Ben always had the belief that he was going to be out here. I don’t know if he was an accountant or whatever for that long. I don’t know what he was.
Question: You won 19 times now on the Tour. That’s a number that Ben Crenshaw, Ernie Els and Tom Kite have also gotten to. What does it mean to have your name among that group?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, Ben and Tom Kite, a couple awesome guys, a couple Longhorns. It’s always fun to be in their company. Those are two guys that I’ve looked up to, and Ernie as well. Ernie has been nothing but great to me since I turned pro.
It’s pretty weird to be in the same realm as those guys just because I’ve looked up to them for such a long time. Yeah, it’s been a nice last few years. I feel very fortunate to be sitting here holding the trophy. It was a hard fought week and definitely fortunate to be mentioned with names like those.
Question:Â Scottie, what was it like just coming to Napa, Silverado, this part of the world and spending the week here and playing before these big, big crowds? Greatest field I think they’ve ever had here and greatest week they’ve ever had here. What was that like summing up the week here in Napa?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Like you said, the crowds were great. We felt so much support from them. There was a lot of noise out there. Our groups were all kind of one part of the golf course out there Thursday and Friday and there was a ton of people out there. It was really fun to be able to play in front of the crowd. We heard lots of USA chants and lots of good luck wishes for the Ryder Cup.
Yeah, as far as Napa goes, I didn’t really do too much of the winery scene, but it’s a beautiful part of the country. California’s amazing. Every time I come here I love it so much. We had a great week here at the course as well. Yeah, overall it was very fun.
Question: Just curious, you speak so consistently about staying in the present. Have you ever checked a football score in the middle of a round?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER:Â In the middle of a tournament round? No. In the middle of a round at home?
Question: That doesn’t count.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Basically, all the time. I was pretty clued into the Cowboys game today before we were teeing off, and last I saw we were punting it away with two and a half minutes left in overtime. Last I heard, we won. I heard that from numerous people out there on the course, so if they were lying to me I’m going to be kind of pissed. I don’t know if they were telling the truth.
Question: We’re a year out. Do you come back to defend this?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, I barely know what I’m going to do tomorrow let alone a year from now. It’s always nice to have an opportunity to come and defend your championships, but we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there. I’ve been pretty consistent with that over time. I don’t like committing to tournaments unless I know for sure I’m going to play. Backing out from a tournament is not a good feeling when you’ve already committed.
Question: Right. I guess what I was looking at, is this something that you could see happening going forward since the Presidents Cup is kind of in the same spot, late September, nothing going on between Atlanta and that? Can you see this being a thing for a U.S. team?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, when I look at my experience from the last few team events, it’s weird to have such a long break after the season ends to one of our biggest events being either the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup. Those are huge for us as Americans and something we take a lot of pride in. I find it really weird there’s four or five weeks between the end of our season and a huge team event.
So staying sharp is something that’s always important to me, but it is important to also get rest at the end of each season. I mean, playing tournament golf out here for an entire year, being in contention, it takes a lot out of you physically and mentally.
So, there is a balance between rest and getting ready for the team events, but going into this Ryder Cup I felt like for our preparation this was something we needed to do was come here and play this week. Like I said, I think we’re all feeling very prepared to go into Bethpage and excited to get that week started.