This might be difficult to believe, but Scottie Scheffler is once again leading a PGA Tour event. The 2022-23 PGA Tour Player of The Year shot a 64 on Friday to get to 16 under at The Sentry, one shot ahead of Tyrrell Hatton, Brendon Todd and Sungjae Im. The pre-tournament favorite is now the mid-tournament favorite after 36 holes of play resembling his performance over the last two years.
Let’s take a look at who has the best chance to catch Scheffler over the next couple days, as well as what the back-to-back PGA Tour Player of the Year needs to do to secure his first win of the young season.Â
The leader
1. Scottie Scheffler (-16): I have been yelling it from the rooftops for a while now, but this is a Tiger Woods-like run for Scheffler. No, the victories are not there like they were for Tiger, but the ball-striking is comically good — he’s fourth from tee to green this week — and the consistency is comical. In 24 starts since November 2022, Scheffler has lost to just 137 golfers. In other words, four and a half golfers per week beat Scottie Scheffler.
None are doing so this week, and a big part of that is because he’s putting it well so far. Scheffler ranks inside the top 15 in putting and has just one bogey on the card thus far. That is a massive problem for everyone else in the golf world.
“I took a lot of time off after the Ryder Cup,” Scheffler explained when asked how he’s trying to keep this preposterous run of great golf going. “Went on vacation after. I took a nice break at home. Started doing a lot of other stuff. Played a lot of pickleball, kept my mind off golf. Came back excited, ready to practice. And even in my time off I still put in the work in the gym, which really helps me when it comes to getting back into golf shape.Â
“If I just try to stay in shape as best I can when I get back out, it doesn’t take me too long to get my swing back. Whereas, when I took long breaks when I was younger, I don’t think my body moved in a proper way and I think that’s been a huge difference for me.”
It’s one thing to have a hot streak of five or even 10 tournaments, but to play at the level Scheffler has played out for as long as he has is historic. To contextualize how good he’s been from tee to green, consider these strokes gained tee to green numbers since the start of 2022.
- Scottie Scheffler: 2.6
- Rory McIlroy: 2.1
- Jon Rahm: 1.8
If that continues, Scheffler is probably going to lead a lot more events at the halfway point. This event will, as it normally does with Scheffler, come down to whether he makes some putts over the final two rounds like he has in the first two. You know the ball-striking is going to be there, and if the short game remains, then the best player of last year will be the best player of this year as well through the first event of the season.
Other contenders
T2. Tyrrell Hatton, Brendon Todd, Sungjae Im (-15)
T5. Chris Kirk, Viktor Hovland, Collin Moriakwa, Ben An (-14)
It’s certainly not going to be easy for Scheffler. In addition to this group, Jordan Spieth, Matt Fitzpatrick, Brian Harman, Jason Day, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay are all within five strokes as well.Â
The two most intriguing contenders are Im and Morikawa. It doesn’t appear to me that Hovland is hitting the ball well enough to win this week (although he could certainly fix that over the weekend), but Im ranks 12th from tee to green so far and Morikawa ranks second.Â
Im is probably the most underrated consistently good player on the PGA Tour; he has 19 top 20s worldwide since the start of the 2022-23 PGA Tour season and three top 15s in three starts at Kapalua. Morikawa has been even better with four top-seven finishes in four starts at this event. Through two rounds, he has yet to make a bogey and is just two off the 16-under number he was on at the halfway point last year.Â
Quote of the day
It comes from our low man in Round 2, Tyrrell Hatton, who shot a 11-under 62 with 10 birdies and an eagle but still found time to lose his mind.
“[My body is] very stiff,” he said. “I think traveling from England, the 25 and a half hours, door to door, and my body still, I wouldn’t say I looked after myself in the December period, maybe that played a part. Yeah, so body hasn’t been moving well. I’m sure if you had seen some flight tracers of some of my tee shots you would be disgusted. They’re kind of going into not too bad of spots, so, yeah, managing fairly well at the moment.”
I would say 11 under on the day is managing fairly well.
2024 The Sentry updated odds, picks
- Scottie Scheffler: +175
- Viktor Hovland: 15/2
- Collin Morikawa: 9-1
- Tyrrell Hatton: 9-1
- Sungjae Im: 10-1
- Jordan Spieth: 22-1
- Matt Fitzpatrick: 22-1
The books are onto Im as well, it appears. Not much changed from Round 1 to Round 2 here other than Scheffler is a bit shorter than he was after the first 18 holes. I still love Morikawa at that 9-1 number given how well he’s playing right now and how solid he’s been on this golf course. That’s close to his opening number, and he’s T5 after two rounds!