FOUR days after Rory McIlroy won the Masters to become the sixth player with the career Grand Slam — and first in 25 years — Scheffler was asked, “Who’s next?”
“I’ve only won one, technically,” he said of his two Masters titles. “I’ve been playing some pretty good golf and I’m not even close.”
Now he is. Scheffler won the PGA Championship (by five shots) and the British Open (by four shots) and suddenly looks more equipped to get the final leg than McIlroy did for a decade. His first opportunity comes in the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, the only US Open for which Scheffler did not qualify in the last 10 years.
He already has had one close call. Scheffler had the lead going to the back nine at The Country Club in 2022, missed a 25-foot putt on the 18th and finished one shot back.
Meanwhile, Nelly Korda became the first player since Tiger Woods in 2010 to go from seven victories one year to none the next, extremely peculiar considering Korda was without significant injury or personal drama except for getting engaged at the end of the year.
She was runner-up by two shots at the US Women’s Open, which seemed to take a lot of momentum away. Perhaps most alarming is how few chances Korda had to win after that.
Korda is not the first No. 1 women’s golf who went from looking unbeatable to searching. Lydia Ko went through such a spell. Yani Tseng and Ariya Jutanugarn practically disappeared a year after they were No. 1.
