Scheffler the man to beat at the Players

Let the real golf season begin. 

Last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, with the difficulty Bay Hill presented, serves as the perfect setup event for the golf that matters most to those who play the game at its highest levels. This week's Players Championship kicks off the countdown to the major championship calendar, which begins with the Masters Tournament, the first of the four annual championships that stand separate from the others when golf fans talk about the quality of a player's legacy.

The best players are remembered for winning major championships, after that PGA Tour victories are all lumped together, eventually indistinguishable from one another. Nothing wrong with winning, but nobody calls out any of the 82 PGA Tour events Tiger Woods or Sam Snead won, aside from Tiger's 15 majors and Sam's five. 

Jack Nicklaus remains King of the Hill with 18 majors, and if the purists want to include U.S. Amateur victories in a player's major championship total, nothing wrong with that.  

The game now, hoever, has officially entered the era of Scottie Scheffler, who comes off a season in which he won nine times, including one major championship and an Olympic golf medal, separating himself from the rest at the top of the game of golf.

And we've yet to see his best in 2025. 

A kitchen accident set Scheffler back from beginning his season, and his four 2025 finishes - in comparison to 2024 - have been pedestrian - T9, T3 and T11 in Signature events with a T25 in the birdie-fest in Phoenix back on Super Bowl weekend. However, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, Scheffler's performance began to sharpen in a way that should make him the odds-on favorite to win the Players. 

"I did some good stuff out there," Scheffler said after Sunday's final round. "I started to drive it a little bit better this week, so that was a bonus. 

"I didn't hole too many putts, it was really challenging out there on these greens. I mean, putting on a surface that's practically dead, the ball can have a life of its own. I'm proud of hitting a lot of good putts, just wasn't my week on the greens."

After three shaky weeks with his driver, Scheffler led the field in driving last week, and turned in the second-worst putting performance since he switched to the mallet putter that launched 2024. 

Scottie made zero putts longer than 10 feet, 9 inches last week, and finished only seven shots back, beaten by only 10 of the 131 other players who teed off on Thursday. 

Driving accuracy, a skill paramount to succeeding at the Stadium course, 

"I didn't drive it very well the first few weeks coming out, so to have a good week off the tee was definitely nice," Scheffler said. "I could be definitely a little sharper with the irons, a little sharper on the greens, but overall I felt like I did a lot of good stuff."

Before we look at the rest of the field, let's eliminate Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa because of how rarely players contend two weeks in a row on Tour. If either wins this week, tip of the cap. 

Also toss out Xander Schauffele simply because it would be a stretch to expect his best game in his second start of the season. Even he admits that his T40 finish at Bay Hill, his first event since the first week of the year when he finished T30 at The Sentry. 

"Form's a bit dodgy," Schauffele said on Tuesday. "I feel pretty good actually, yeah. I think (the Arnold Palmer Invitational) was a true test. Probably the worst course to come back to after not playing much golf, just from a confidence standpoint."

Coming off a season in which he broke through with a pair of major championships after so many years of close calls, it was expected that 2025 would see another leap forward. 

"Unfortunately I think those two majors have absolutely nothing to do with what's going on right now, with what I'm doing, me just getting back into - trying to get back into good golfing shape," said Schauffele.

"So it's a nice thing to think about in my head, but it's definitely not where my brain's going. I'm just trying to tackle the task at hand and learn from my flaws last week, my struggles last week and try and clean them up for this week."

The test this week is TPC Sawgrass and Pete Dye's Stadium Course, a par-72 layout measuring 7,352 yards, complete with the 17th-hole island green and precarious runoffs every where you look. 

"It's the kind of course where you need a lot of things to go right to be in the mix, said Adam Scott, playing in his 23rd Players. "The penalty is extreme. I mean, I think that's a trait of Pete Dye golf courses.

"There's water everywhere, it's hard to recover from the water, and a couple of visits to the water during the week makes it hard playing catch-up, because then you have to force it and you have to risk."

"And it's there, but if you're not on it, it's hard to always post a good number here."

Again and again the Stadium course demands a level of precision that has separated Scheffler from the rest of the world's best players over the past 15 months.

Said Ludvig Aberg: "TPC Sawgrass is one of my favorite golf courses because it's so straightforward and it's so in front of you but you've still got to hit the shots. You have to execute. If you don't, you're going to get punished real hard."

"But also, if you do execute the shots you're going to get a lot of opportunities."

Justin Thomas: "Very quickly, holes out here can go from birdie holes or birdie opportunities to really grinding for par, sometimes bogey. So I just think over time Pete Dye courses kind of have those characteristics of it requires a little bit of luck.

"Obviously it's not a gimmicky course by any means, but just the way that some of the slopes and whatnot are around the greens, I think just over time you're going to have some years you just get unfortunate."

Breaking down the other potential winners of the Players as follows: 

Genuine contenders - Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas. 

A win at the season-opening Sentry and a pair of top-25s in 2025 Signature events indicate Matsuyama has been able to summon the best of his game, which earned him the 2021 Masters title. 

Rory's win at Pebble Beach, along with a pair of top-20s in three 2025 PGA Tour starts, say that the four-time major champion who's in year 11 looking for No. 5 can raise his game to a winning level. On the down side, it's starting to feel like Pebble was an off week for the best players as few who finished high up that leaderboard have played back to that finish. 

Ludvig Aberg has the look of the next guy up at the top of the game, with a Signature victory at the Genesis packed on top of his second-place finish in his Masters debut a year ago. A knee issue last year and the flu earlier this year have given his week-in, week-out performances a bit of inconsistency, but his best might make him the second-best player on the planet right now. 

Justin Thomas? On the strength of three top-10 finishes, including a runnerup performance in Phoenix, it seems safe to say that Justin has pushed his way back into the conversation at the top of the game, but he has yet to reach the level he achieved before his struggles two years back when he failed to reach the PGA Tour playoffs. 

The former No. 1 player in the world had fallen to No. 33 by the start of the 2024 FedEx Fall season, but has played his way back to No. 9 in the Official World Golf Rankings. 

Have played well enough so far in 2025 that a win would not surprise - Jason Day, Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry. 

Jason Day is playing as if the fire still burns within to regain the top spot in the world, which he held in 2015 when he won five times including the PGA Championship. He has posted a top-5 (T3 at the Amex), a top-10 (T9 at the API), and a top-20 (a T13 at Pebble Beach) in six 2025 starts without missing a cut. 

Sepp Straka won the American Express and has a T5 and T7 in Signature events among five Top-15 finishes in six 2025 starts. Not a surprise he is the top FedEx Cup points earner so far in 2025.  

After missing the cut in his season-opening warmup event in San Diego, Shane Lowry has finished second (to Rory at Pebble), and finished 11th or better in his last two starts (a T11 at the Cognizant followed by a seventh-place finish last week at Bay Hill. 

Have been sneaky good and trending up in 2025 - Tommy Fleetwood and Si Woo Kim.  

Winning has to happen to Tommy Fleetwood someday. The European Ryder Cupper comes off a T11 at the Arnold Palmer Invitation after finishing T5 at the Genesis over a difficult Torrey Pines South track. Yes, he's yet to win in 148 PGA Tour starts, but he finished T3 at last year's Masters, T5 at the 2023 U.S. Open at LACC, and T4 at the 2022 Open Championship at St. Andrews. When he finally does win a big one, nobody will be shocked. 

Si Woo Kim has top-25 finishes in his last four PGA Tour starts, which include three Signature events. He won the Players back in 2017, the second of his four PGA Tour wins. 

And for those who really want to get out on a limb, a genuine longshot who would make a lot of sense after the fact - Robert MacIntyre. 

MacIntyre has continued the climb up the ladder at golf's highest levels for the past two years, and a win here might be the logical next step for the 28-year-old Scotsman. After contributing to the European Ryder Cup win in 2023, he won twice last year, the RBC Canadian Open and the Genesis Scottish Open, a much bigger win for the native of Oban, Scotland, than any of his American counterparts.  

Regardless who wins this week, the calendar accerates from here. The Masters is xxx weeks away in April. In May, the xxxrd PGA Championsionship and U.S. Open qualifying. In June, the 125th U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, and in July, the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.   

"I think you can tell as players are starting to get into that mindset and kind of that mode of it's getting to the big stretch of golf here," said Justin Thomas, "and I think it definitely seems to start with this event."