Scottie Scheffler has a plan to beat the heat and the competition this week as the PGA Tour playoffs get underway at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
The World No. 1 and FedExCup points leader is trending in the right direction after finishing fourth at TPC Southwind in 2024 and tying for third place last year.
“A lot of it is ball striking around these places,” Scheffler told reporters Wednesday when asked what he has learned about the course over the years. “You’ve got to hit a lot of fairways. When you’re in the fairway, you have good opportunity. The areas to play it. The areas to hit in are really small, and I think that’s also what makes it a good golf course.
“You’ve got to challenge a lot of these hazards. There’s a lot of hazards on the golf course. If you start playing too safe, you’re going to be in the rough. If you get a little overaggressive, you’re going to be in the water. So I think this golf course really challenges you to execute often.”
The fifth hole provides a particularly tough challenge.
“It’s like a 500-yard par-4. It might even be longer now with the new tee,” Scheffler said. “The second shot is challenging because the greens narrow and it typically plays into the wind. The tee shot too, you can’t really see the fairway, so you kind of challenge in the tree line.
“Yeah, it’s I wouldn’t say blind, but it’s somewhat blind from the sense of if you can’t quite see your ball land in the fairway. So hard tee shot and hard second shot, it’s a pretty simple recipe for a difficult golf hole.”
Scheffler, 30, enters the three-week stretch of FedExCup Playoffs without a win on tour since the American Express back in January. He posted his fifth runner-up finish of the season in his most recent event at last month’s 3M Open.
“Busy three-week stretch,” he said. “I’m excited. I have three tournaments, three good starts to kind of end the year. Definitely excited to get this week going. I had a couple of good weeks of rest at home, and I’m looking forward to getting this week started.”
With forecasts calling for triple-digit temperatures in Tennessee by Sunday, Scheffler said he will take precautions.
“A lot of hydration … and a lot of that happens before the round,” he said. “You can only drink so much water out on the course without getting waterlogged. That’s something that we actually experience at home depending on, if I take a break to eat lunch and go back out and chug a bunch of water, you can get waterlogged. It feels like it sits in your belly sometimes.
“A lot of the hydration is something you have to focus on beforehand, and it’s not necessarily water, it’s a lot of electrolytes and stuff like that. The heat is something you really have to prepare for ahead of time.”
