THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Scottie Scheffler to the interview room here at the Travelers Championship. Scottie, making your fifth career start here. You've improved each of your four years here, finished fourth last year, if you can talk about being back her at TPC River Highlands.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it's good to be back. I feel like this is always a fun tournament to come play. Community really kind of rallies around the tournament. The fans are always tremendous. The golf course is typically always in great shape. The clubhouse. The way the tournament treats us as players is always tremendous. So it's a very easy, fun week for to us come play and glad to be back here.
THE MODERATOR: Last Signature Event of the year, you've won three so far this year, five overall tournaments, just recap the season for us if you can.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, so far it's been nice to get some results, get some wins out of playing some good golf. I'm hoping that will continue as the year goes on and, yeah, it's been a good year.
THE MODERATOR: All right, we'll open it up to questions.
Q. How would you kind of characterize last week at Pinehurst now that you've had some time to think about how it went?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Long. (Smiling.) Yeah, pretty much. Just a long week. I would say it's a tough week. I didn't have my best stuff and that's a pretty difficult golf course to try and make a lot of birdies and play some good golf around when you don't have your best stuff. I think that's how I would characterize it.
Q. Just the wire grass and kind of the variability that it can kind of create off the tee, whether you could be kind of totally forced to pitch out or you could have a perfect lie. Does that mess with you on the tee at all, knowing it could be great, it could be terrible when you hit it in there?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I would say for sure that's a pretty good observation. When I'm not playing my best I feel like one of my skills is kind of managing my way around the golf course knowing where the misses are. When you have pretty much a coin flip on whether or not you're going to have a swing or not there's not really a side of the fairway to miss it on, there's not really areas you can play to, you just have to hit great golf shots. And when you're not hitting it great, you know, I feel like that's why I'm usually able to compete when I don't have my best stuff is the way I kind of manage my way around the golf course, and last week you're just not able to do that, just with the nature of the grass. Because you could hit it a foot off the fairway and be in a bush, and you could hit it 20 yards off the fairway and have a perfect lie that you're -- and it plays like you're in the fairway. So that part of the course I didn't love, but tee to green -- fairway -- sorry, I should say fairway to greens, I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was a great test of golf. It challenged us in all the right ways. You had to hit great shots in order to hold the greens. Around the greens you always had some sort of shot because you're playing out of the short grass. So I think sometimes when the rough is really heavy you see guys playing the same shot over and over again. And a ball that runs through the green goes the same distance over the green as a ball that barely trickles. And when it's all runoff areas that are tightly mown you pay bigger penalty for a bigger miss, which I think as players that's all we're looking for is to have good shots rewarded and have bad shots punished accordingly to how bad they are.
Q. You've played in a couple of events now in a row and coming here, with the heat and the hot weather that we're expecting to get, is it more challenging to play when you're maybe physically fatigued or mentally fatigued?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think mentally fatigued. I think with golf, the physical aspect of it you can really train for. The mental part is I would say more difficult to train for. As far as the neat heat goes, I'm from Texas so it's actually cold up here to me. I was a little chilly this morning when I got out there on the course. But, yeah, I would think mentally it's always more challenging than it is physically.
Q. Your caddie Ted Scott has had a lot of success here with Bubba --
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: He always reminds me of that.
Q. -- and won tournaments. To that point, when you come to an event where, for example, a player's caddie has had success, how much do you think that your self or other players maybe rely a little bit more on their caddie to help get them over the finish line if they haven't won that particular event themselves?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I lean pretty heavily on Ted week-to-week. This is a golf course that he's had a lot of success on, so if there's a difference of opinion I'm probably going to lean towards him a little bit more than myself, just because I haven't had the success on this golf course specifically. A different tournament I may lean more to what I feel and think, whereas out here he really does a good job of managing around this golf course. I think of another place, Augusta is kind of like that, where whatever he says seems to kind of go for me in my head, just because he's had the success, he has the pedigree, he knows where to put the ball and where not to put the ball. And especially when it comes to a lot of course management stuff clubs to choose off the tees, what areas to play into, just because, like you said, he has seen Bubba win here numerous times and he knows exactly I think how to kind of get me there, if that make sense.
Q. Started the season going strong going 41 straight rounds par or better and then obviously 5-over -- or five rounds straight over par. What's it like for what some people would say to kind of be human now, and how do you put that past you and look forward to this week?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well I didn't really think about it very much when I was shooting under par, so I'm probably not going to think about it too much when I'm shooting over par. Just one of those deals. Like, I was playing good and I was able to survive kind of the harder golf courses. Like Bay Hill was a golf course where you're pretty much going to shoot over par at least one round. I did, did the streak end at Colonial?
Q. PGA.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: PGA. Yeah, PGA. But then, like it's just kind of those weird little stats. Like, I think I shot over par a couple times at Colonial and I finished second. So it's not like, you know, I played that bad and shot over par. It's kind of one of those deals that just out of sight, out of mind.
Q. Do you have any reaction to the LIV/PGA negotiations? They seem to be going slower. Is there any frustration with that?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No idea. I'm not really too much a part of it, so I haven't really heard too much, so I don't know if they're going great or if they're going poorly, so your guess is as good as mine I think at this point. Hopefully they will continue to progress, but we'll see. But definitely no frustration or anything like that for me. It's out of my control, so I'm not too worried about it. They have got a lot of big business decisions to make, and as far as my opinion goes, I sit on our PAC, but as far as input in the negotiations, I don't really have much to say at all. So the frustration, definitely not, but we'll see how things progress.
Q. Having been through now a season of the Signature Events just wondering what your take is on the concept on the schedule, what you like about it, what you may think needs to be tweaked about it.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it's a good question. I think pretty loaded. I think I'll have a better idea once I sit down after the year and kind of figure it out. As far as playing in the events I think it's a great experience for the players. Being able to play twosomes for the week is really nice, it's great for pace of play. I know pace of play is a huge, I think a huge debate in the golf world -- or at least it was before the LIV stuff all happened, I think pace of play was the biggest deal in golf. So being able to play twosomes and playing a golf course like this I'm sure we'll be definitely able to get in in under four hours.
As far as playing multiple weeks in a row, having the ability to play twosomes makes it a lot easier to get guys around the golf course, especially if we're going to be asked to play numerous weeks in a row with these events. As far as the actual on-course product goes I think it's great to have the best players together as often as you can on our TOUR, and how do you make that happen I think is an, it is the biggest question to ask, and how can we make that product the best for the fans. I think as the year goes on into the off-season I think we'll have a lot more of those discussions to sit back and look, but right now we're still in the midst of it and so I've been pretty focused on kind of my on-course stuff versus the off-course stuff, so as far as off-season goes it's something that I think a lot of us will address.
Q. You mentioned mental toughness earlier. We know you just had a baby, and for those of us that are dads in here we know what a new baby does to you. How are you doing personally with all that going on?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it's been a ton of fun. We've been fortunate that Bennett's been healthy and Meredith's been healthy, so they have been able to travel with me. He does a decent job at night, but every night's a mystery, you know. But it's been a ton of fun. Fatherhood has been great. It's really special to see him develop basically daily. It's so funny how excited you go -- I actually realized when we about were going to dinner last night. We were riding in the car, dinner was about a half hour away, and I swear every minute I was like, Mere, look what he's doing, look at him. It's like, after 15 minutes, it's like, all right you can probably stop telling your wife to look at her son, it's like not that big of a deal. But life's a lot different, but it's different in a great way and it's been a ton of fun.
Q. I'm a sneaker guy. So how do you choose which pair you wear on the course or why do you wear the model that you wear?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: So most of it is based on performance. The shoe I actually think is extremely important in the golf swing, especially for me with how much my feet move throughout the swing. It's very important for me to be wearing the same shoe every time because if I change the way the shoe sits at an angle or if I change the height it can change drastically how the club goes through the ball. So I wear typically the same pair just for performance reasons, just so I have the same amount of traction, same amount of weight. Like if I wore shoes that were a lot heavier it would be much tougher for me to get onto my left side. So most of it is just based on the performance of the shoe. I like the way they look as well, but mostly it's based on performance.
Q. Do you switch throughout the season or is it one pair the entire season?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I typically will wear -- like do I change like for a fresh pair? Yeah. So I'll typically get a fresh pair every other week about, just to make sure everything stays super consistent with the shoe. As far as breaking them in, that's not really a huge deal for me they're usually pretty comfortable to start. And it's nice to have a nice new pair of shoes that look good, because when I was a kid I would wear shoes for years and they probably wouldn't be the best product for Nike on TV, because I play a lot of golf (laughing). And so as far as wearing a fresh pair, just so the performance stays the exact same, kind of like I would with a fresh wedge. Most people don't change golf clubs for years but we change lob wedges probably once a month. So a lot of that is just based on performance.
Q. Last winter you talked a lot about the stuff that you and Phil Kenyon were working on with the putting stroke, feeling more athletic throughout everything. Now that -- maybe you could say different -- maybe now that it's a bit more ingrained in I still see you working with him most weeks. What, at this point, are you guys working? Is it continuing those feels or have you moved on to other things?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No, I would say continuing a lot of those feels. I think like the process is always on going. So we're always trying to get a little bit better. I feel like with the stuff we're working on there's always room for improvement and most of it is just working on getting the right picture in my head and being as athletic as possible. So I would say we're continuing to fine tune and find better ways to work on what we originally worked on, if that make sense.
Q. You arrive in New England right after the Celtics beat the Mavs, are you --
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Do I have to answer this question?
THE MODERATOR: Let's see what it is first. (Laughing).
Q. That might give me my answer right there. Are you expecting to hear any trash talk, I guess, from fans or from other golfers?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Probably not from other golfers. Maybe Keegan, but probably not. I wouldn't really expect it out of him. I did get one fan today who asked me to sign a Celtics hat and I told him no, but other than that not much interaction. (Laughing).
Q. You're going to be returning over with a bunch of the American players as a member of the Olympic team. Would you anticipate when you get to Paris you'll be working as a team or will it be sort of like a week-to-week PGA TOUR event where maybe what's best for Scottie Scheffler and you playing your best isn't necessarily sharing notes, comparing things, working with Collin and Wyndham and such like that, getting through there. How much will you work as an team as the United States and how much will you work as Scottie Scheffler trying to win a medal?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I think with the format of it it's more of an individual tournament, because there's no real team aspect. But as far as going over there and playing, I would approach it the same way I would a tournament here. I'll probably play a practice round with the guys just because we're friends, not for any other reason. Usually we're always kind of sharing notes on the golf course and stuff like that. When you play a practice round together you just discuss things, just by nature of being out there together. So I would assume it's going to be a lot of that, just, you know, the field will be a bit different. And so I'm not necessarily going to go out and try to play too many practice rounds with somebody from a different country. So I'm probably going to, from that aspect, we're trying to go over there and earn a medal for the USA so it will probably be a closer knit circle as we go over there. I never really played, so I don't know what the vibes are like over there, and to be honest I hadn't really thought about it until you asked that question. So those are my first thoughts.
Q. What other Olympic events might you be most excited to see in person?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I always loved basketball. I grew up playing basketball. I would like to see that. Tennis has always really interested me. I think going down to the Olympic Village at least once is something I'm going to want to do, just to watch the athletes train. I think I'm fascinated by a lot of other sports. I grew up playing a ton of sports, and so to be able to see the best in the world at their craft would be pretty special. I think my wife really wants to see the gymnastics, so probably go try to see that as well. But we'll see what we have time for as the week goes on.
Q. You've accomplished a lot in golf. As you get closer, what do you think it will be like to play for your country and the excitement it will be from that?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I think playing for your country is always extremely exciting. Especially I think it will be extra special doing it on the Olympic stage. It's also a good bragging rights for people when they tell me golf's not a sport, I can say it's a Olympic sport. That's always fun. (Laughing).
But, yeah, representing your country is really special and to do it on the Olympic stage is going to be pretty surreal, I would say. Like I said, I'm just excited to go there and experience the Olympics, see some other sports, go to the Village, see the other athletes, and just really be a part of it. So it should be a fun, special week.
THE MODERATOR: All right, Scottie Scheffler, thank you, sir.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Thanks, y'all.
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