Normally, the day after a golfer wins a major, the post-mortems are about, well, golf. But Scottie Scheffler's easy victory at the British Open has prompted more existential discussions. As Jason Gay writes in the Wall Street Journal, the 29-year-old is the one responsible for this because of comments he made earlier in the week.
- "Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly?" Scheffler asked reporters. "I don't know, because, if I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes." He added: "This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart."
Scheffler "surely didn't intend to launch a worldwide dialogue on the meaning of winning," writes Gay. "But his words struck a chord in a distracted digital world, in which happiness is fleeting and there's a gargantuan economy selling quick fixes (apps, pills, ice baths) without any hard thinking about what's happening underneath." A key part of the discussion is the fact that Scheffler is not just the best golfer in the world right now, but he is arguably among the best ever to play the game, writes Brendan Quinn at the
Athletic. "This is what happens when those select few come around—the all-timers; the ones who make you realize history is happening here and now. We need to know what's in there."
To be clear, Scheffler is not anguished about golf. He's loved the game since he was a prodigy. But "the man is built differently," writes Michael Hamberger at Golf.com. "The top of his batting order is Faith, Family, Golf. He's happy to play for the money these tournaments are offering. He had no interest in chasing a bigger LIV payday. He's not looking for more fame. He's not on the more-more-more hamster wheel. For a 29-year-old in 2025, he really is a most unusual person." Scheffler addressed this at his post-win news conference with a Chipotle anecdote:
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- "I've said it for a long time: Golf is not how I identify myself. I don't identify myself by winning tournaments, chasing trophies, being famous or whatever. There are two Chipotles that I eat at, at home. Actually, not really two anymore. There's one right where I grew up, kind of near SMU's campus. If I was to go to that Chipotle and try to eat nowadays, it would be very difficult for me. There's another one in a different part of town. I'm not going to tell you where it is. But if I go there, nobody recognizes me, ever."
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