The top of the Official World Golf Ranking has been dominated by three players in recent months – Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.
While Rahm grabbed plenty of headlines for the scintillating form he showed in the opening months of the season, and McIlroy has recovered from a dip to card five successive top 10 finishes, Scheffler has been the most consistent of the three.
How consistent? Well, you need to go back to last October’s CJ Cup at Congaree to find the last time the American finished outside the top 12 in a tournament.
The 26-year-old, who is currently top of the world rankings, finished T45 in that tournament, 16 shots behind McIlroy, which gave little hint to the kind of run he was about to embark on.
A couple of weeks later, though, Scheffler finished tied for third in the World Wide Technology Championship, the first of 18 successive tournaments that would see him inside the top 12, encompassing a mammoth 245 days so far.
Among the highlights during that run have been wins in the WM Phoenix Open and The Players Championship and a runner-up finish in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill. If anything, he’s becoming even more consistent as the run continues, too, with top five finishes in each of his last six tournaments going back to the AT&T Byron Nelson in mid-May.
Perhaps even more extraordinarily, Scheffler has achieved the run even with concerns over his putting. He tops the PGA Tour's Strokes Gained statistics for Off the tee, Tee to green, Approach and 'Total,' but the Strokes Gained statistics for his putting see him at 130th.
There were signs Scheffler had begun to address that issue in the opening rounds of the US Open earlier in the month, and he admitted: “I feel like I'm rolling it nice this week.” However, familiar issues resurfaced in the final round as he eventually settled for third behind McIlroy and Wyndham Clark.
Scheffler followed up that performance with a T4 at the Travelers Championship, but once again there was room for improvement with his putter.
If he can address his issues on the greens, Scheffler’s run could very quickly turn from impressive to downright incredible.
With plenty of action left in the season, including The Open at Royal Liverpool and the FedEx Cup Playoffs beyond that, Scheffler’s run could continue for some time, while the biggest highlights may still lie ahead.
