Phoenix Open Preview: Why Scheffler’s Dominance Should Worry the Rest of the Field
Listen, I’ve been covering professional golf for 35 years, and I’ve seen my share of dominant players. I caddied for Tom Lehman during some of his best years, covered 15 Masters tournaments, and watched the tour evolve from a gentleman’s game into a precision-engineered sport where analytics and athleticism reign supreme. But what Scottie Scheffler is doing right now? This is different. And as we head into another Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale this week, I think we’re witnessing something we need to properly acknowledge rather than casually dismiss.
The Phoenix Open represents one of the most entertaining events on the PGA Tour calendar. There’s a reason fans pack Scottsdale every year—the rough-and-tumble atmosphere, the island green theater, the unpredictability of desert golf. It’s Super Bowl week, and while the rest of the sports world focuses on football, us golf nuts know we’re getting our own spectacle. The purse sits at $9.6 million, and traditionally, this is where the tour’s best strategists separate themselves from the field.
Scheffler, unsurprisingly, is the clear favorite with 23/10 odds at FanDuel Sportsbook. But here’s what strikes me about his candidacy this year: his success at TPC Scottsdale isn’t just about winning. Look at the actual record. Two wins, two top-10 finishes, and a top-25 across his last five starts. That’s consistency bordering on the mechanical. In my experience, that kind of repetition at a specific venue tells you something profound about a player’s understanding of his own game relative to a specific landscape.
The Multi-Course Mastery Problem
What really concerns me—and this is where I think the narrative gets undersold—is Scheffler’s unprecedented versatility across different course designs. According to our preview material, Scheffler has multiple wins at TPC Scottsdale, Augusta National, TPC Sawgrass, Albany GC, Muirfield Village, and Bay Hill. This season, he’s pushing those two-win venues to three. That’s not just good golf. That’s a player who has essentially cracked the code on how to win at every type of venue the tour throws at him.
Think about that for a moment. These courses couldn’t be more different architecturally or strategically. Sawgrass demands precision. Augusta rewards shot-making and course management. Muirfield Village suits aggressive play. Yet Scheffler wins at all of them. When I caddied for Tom back in the day, we talked endlessly about how a player’s strengths played into specific course designs. Tom was a methodical player—he thrived where patience and accuracy mattered more than distance. Scheffler seems to have eliminated that weakness. He’s equally dangerous whether the course demands subtlety or aggression.
“Having gone on record that Scheffler threatens double-digits wins this year, there’s little choice but to consider this a must-win for Scheffler at his happy hunting grounds, which are bountiful.”
Our own Patrick McDonald makes a crucial point here. If Scheffler truly threatens double-digit wins this season—and frankly, after watching his performance, I think that’s entirely reasonable—then every event becomes a must-win. That’s a mental burden most players couldn’t carry. It’s also a luxury problem, but it’s a problem nonetheless.
What Makes TPC Scottsdale Different
The Phoenix Open specifically rewards what I’d call “strategic quality.” It’s not a raw power contest, despite what the desert setting might suggest. The course demands you understand angles, manage the firm conditions, and execute under pressure with crowds in positions that most tour venues would never allow. In my three decades covering the tour, I’ve noticed that courses like Scottsdale separate the thinking players from the hitters.
“This is a place that rewards strategy and quality shots, which will only separate Scheffler more.”
McDonald nails it. Scheffler’s greatest strength isn’t his distance—plenty of guys on tour hit it far. It’s his decision-making under pressure and his ability to shape shots precisely. At Scottsdale, those qualities become superpowers. The rough is thick enough to punish waywardness, but not so brutal that it’s purely a lottery. The greens reward aggression only if that aggression is calculated. This is Scheffler’s playground.
The Path Forward
What strikes me most about Scheffler’s dominance isn’t something to lament—it’s something to appreciate. We live in an era where parity often rules sports. Scheffler reminds us why great players matter. He’s not dominating through luck or course favoritism. He’s dominating because he’s simply playing a better brand of golf than everyone else.
The rest of the field needs to understand something fundamental: you’re not going to out-talent Scheffler. You’re not going to out-work him—I’d bet my broadcasting credentials he’s already spent hours analyzing Scottsdale conditions. What you can do is execute your own game flawlessly and hope Scheffler has one of those rare weeks where even the best players struggle with their short game or decision-making.
It hasn’t happened much lately. But golf is still golf, and miracles still happen. That’s what makes this week worth watching, even if the smart money is already on the world’s number one player.
The WM Phoenix Open tees off today, and you can expect Scheffler to be firmly in contention come Sunday. Whether anyone can actually catch him is another matter entirely.
