Scottie Scheffler Aims for a 3rd Win at The Players Championship

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00:00But let's get to it now, the Players Championship.

00:03Everybody loves this event, the fifth major, of course,

00:06as it has been called in the past.

00:08We have, of course, Scotty going for three in a row.

00:11He's a big favorite, as always.

00:13But I wanna start with him, Smiley,

00:14because watching him over the weekend,

00:17and we know that he can be a machine,

00:19but I think there's a small chink in the armor right now,

00:23and I wanna see if you agree,

00:24because it feels like three years ago,

00:27Scotty putting is a little bit back right now,

00:31and it's something that maybe has to be cleaned up,

00:33or else he's not gonna be as invincible

00:34as he's been in the past at this event.

00:37Well, at the beginning of the year,

00:38it was the ball striking for him that was off.

00:40Talking to Ted Scott, his caddie,

00:42last week on the range at Bay Hill,

00:44that was one of the things

00:45that just was a little off for him.

00:47You know, most of the time,

00:47he's got this shot that he can rely on,

00:50that can go left to right.

00:51He was missing left quite a bit.

00:52So at the beginning of the year,

00:54kind of working through the golf swing,

00:56coming off the rust of the hand surgery that he had,

00:59that was kind of a point of emphasis heading into last week.

01:02And so you wanna see, all right,

01:04did you clean up the ball striking?

01:06How close are you to being Scotty Sheffler

01:08of just what he's able to do TD Green?

01:11And he was first in that statistic last week.

01:14So even on a week in which Scotty

01:16wasn't a part of the storyline,

01:18I have to look at the stats and say,

01:20okay, he solved what was one of his issues

01:24at the beginning of the year,

01:25which is he's a superstar,

01:27best in the world at hitting the golf ball.

01:29And he proved it last week that he's still the best.

01:31Yes, the putter was off,

01:33but he also putted pretty well, I think, on the West Coast.

01:36So just hasn't had everything, I guess,

01:39working in sync at this point this year.

01:42Like one thing's been off every round.

01:44It just hasn't had that day in which everything goes right.

01:48I feel like he's trending in the right direction,

01:51especially into a place that he's wanted to use on our own.

01:55And last year, let's remember,

01:57I mean, he was how far back on Saturday?

01:59Oh, man, he's, he, he came roaring back.

02:04I think he got to 20.

02:06I think he was at 20 because we were on the 16th tee.

02:09And I was walking with this group

02:11and I believe he was at nine under.

02:13And then he, I think he birdied 16, 17 and 18,

02:17I believe to get to 12.

02:19And then he shot like seven or eight on Sunday.

02:21I gotta go back and check all this.

02:23I haven't done like my full prep yet,

02:24but that, from my memory,

02:26it was just how silly it was that Sunday for him.

02:29This is also a tournament, as you know, Smiley,

02:31where historically sometimes what wave you are in

02:35on Thursday and Friday can really play a big role

02:40in where you get on Saturday and Sunday.

02:42I saw one stat that 14 of the last 70 winners

02:46had the Thursday a.m., Friday p.m. lineup.

02:51But that doesn't seem like it's gonna be flipped this year

02:53because it sounds like Friday late

02:56is when you're gonna potentially start

02:58to get some of the wind start to come through.

03:01Yeah, I'm sitting here looking at the forecast.

03:02We're getting five to 10 miles an hour on Thursday,

03:05which is hardly no wind at all.

03:08Friday, we're getting 10 to 15 northeast.

03:10So if I had a choice, I would want to be playing,

03:15gosh, I would probably want to late early, honestly.

03:18It's, Friday's gonna be the tougher of the two days.

03:21So maybe Thursday in the morning,

03:23like you're talking about, could be pretty good, too,

03:25to get off to a good start.

03:27But Saturday's gonna be the day

03:28which is where the golf term's gonna be won.

03:31It's, you know, you just try to get yourself

03:33in contention going into the weekend,

03:34but then Saturday's like a hang-on day.

03:36It's gonna be blowing, apparently, at 15 to 25,

03:39and the gusts could be much more than that.

03:42So if we remember that one year

03:43where JT shot that crazy 68,

03:46and that weather that was just absurd.

03:48I mean, they were getting gusts to like 40.

03:50The guys could not get it on the green at 17

03:53because of how hard the wind was blowing.

03:54They're hitting six and five irons.

03:56So I don't think we're gonna get quite that extreme.

04:00Not sure what direction it is at 17,

04:02but still, that's gonna be the day

04:04in which it's gonna kind of separate

04:06who's gonna be in contention going into Sunday.

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