CASTLE ROCK — Scottie Scheffler unintentionally trained to conquer Colorado’s altitude on a family vacation between green jacket and gold medal triumphs.
So what if lung preparation wasn’t exactly the point of his trip to Telluride in early July? It provided him a little peace of mind, placebo or not, about returning to the Centennial State a month later for the BMW Championship.
“The elevation got to me a little bit (in Telluride),” Scheffler said. “So I’m kind of glad I got it out of the way then because I have struggled with it from time to time.”
Elevation might be the only thing capable of hindering Scheffler’s historic 2024 at this point. Before his well-earned vacation, he became the first golfer to claim six PGA Tour wins in a season before July since Arnold Palmer accomplished the feat in 1962. After vacation, he went to Paris and won the Olympic gold medal in individual men’s golf.
The top-ranked golfer in the world can ascend into even more rarefied air this weekend if he wins the BMW Championship, an event consisting of 50 remaining participants in the FedExCup Playoffs. In the modern era (since 1983), only Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh have won seven or more PGA Tour tournaments in a single season.
First, Scheffler has to ascend into thin air. Castle Pines Golf Club, located south of Denver, has an average elevation of 6,200 feet above sea level. It’s not quite Telluride, but it’s nothing to scoff at either considering the up-and-down hiking required to complete 18 holes at the longest course in PGA Tour history. It spans 8,130 yards.
Bad dreams in Bogota are reawakened at times like these.
“I remember sleeping really bad the first few nights,” Scheffler said Wednesday, recalling a tournament he played in Colombia — at over 8,000 feet of elevation. “You have really weird dreams, and you wake up in the middle of the night feeling like you can’t breathe, and just weird stuff. I felt like that experience playing at a little bit higher altitude has kind of helped me adjust to this week.”
No doubt he’ll manage to fight off the elements once competitive adrenaline is flowing. Scheffler has been seemingly invincible this year, impervious to adversity bordering on the soap operatic. He was arrested, jailed and charged with a felony after a misunderstanding with a police officer while arriving for work at the PGA Championship. Charges were eventually dropped. By tee time, Scheffler was out of his cell and on the golf course.
He has been a top-10 finisher in 15 of the 17 PGA events at which he’s competed this season, an unprecedented run of consistency. That doesn’t even include the Olympics. His second career title at The Masters was definitive: 11-under par and four strokes ahead of the runner-up. He was the fourth-youngest golfer to be crowned twice at Augusta, behind Jack Nicklaus, Woods and Seve Ballesteros.
Since then, Scheffler has turned 28, welcomed his first child (a son named Bennett) and kept winning.
“He’s been playing unbelievable golf,” said Xander Schauffele, who has won two majors this year and is paired with Scheffler at Castle Pines. “I feel like we’re all just chasing him. I’ve done probably the best job of getting the closest to him, but it’s still very far away.”
“It’s hard to argue with how good Scottie is playing right now and what he’s done this year,” Denver native and world No. 5 Wyndham Clark weighed in. “I know Xander has had an amazing year, and most years that’s the best year anyone will ever have, but Scottie is on a run that we haven’t seen since Tiger.”
Scheffler could have theoretically skipped this tournament in favor of next week’s FedExCup Playoffs finale in Atlanta, thanks to his points advantage in the standings. He even realized this year that he generally doesn’t like playing the week before a major championship.
But when you’re on a run that hasn’t been seen since Tiger, might as well play it out. There’s still room in the trophy case.
“At the end of the day, I talk about not one trophy being much more important than another,” he said. “Yeah, I would love to win the FedExCup, but I would also love to win this tournament.”
Lucky for Colorado. Scheffler’s in the house. And he’s ready to master the Mile High City.
“I was working out in the gym yesterday, and I was definitely getting out of breath a lot faster than I would at home,” he said. “But I feel like I’m doing a good job of getting adjusted.”
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