PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — It might be said that every moment, every instant that Scottie Scheffler spends in the heat of battle is the product of thousands of decisions that nobody ever sees.
Decisions like the one he faced on Saturday afternoon at the Players Championship, shortly after completing one of the low rounds of the day at TPC Sawgrass, when Scheffler faced a question of the utmost seriousness: Burrito or bowl?
Golf is a complicated sport, and that’s largely because its champions are built upon fractional advantages. In 2022, Scheffler’s Strokes Gained: Putting was -.301, which ranked 162nd on Tour and caused several months of sustained apoplexy among golf talking heads. In 2025, it was .382 — an improvement of slightly more than half a shot per round — and Scheffler was unanimously viewed as one of the best putters on Tour and a generally unstoppable force in the sport.
The butterfly effect of such incremental improvements can be seen everywhere on a typical weekend on the PGA Tour, where golfers chase gear fixes, physical therapy and even psychological treatment in the feeble hope of an extra decimal point.
“If we can make them literally one percent better every week, then we’ve done something,” Kellen Watson, a Tour Rep for Callaway, says. “One percent is more than enough.”
Given this competitive environment, it should come as no surprise that nutrition has become a major focus. Allergy tests and other recent advances in nutritional science have led many golfers to adopt more restrictive, performance-focused diets. Some players cook everything themselves, avoiding common triggers such as gluten and dairy with militaristic diligence. Others bring personal chefs on the road to cater to even the most restrictive dietary needs. The shift has been so pronounced that in 2023, the PGA Tour revamped its nutrition program entirely to serve nutritionist-approved menus with various allergens and performance diets at the forefront.
Many players appreciated the shift, which labeled foods not only by ingredients but also by intended time of consumption, such as “RECOVERY” and “PRE-ROUND.” Still, not everybody was pleased.
“It’s actually my complaint here this week is the food is too healthy in player dining,” Tom Hoge said in ’23. “There’s a QR code for us; I logged that complaint. They need some food like the rest of the obese people in America eat.”
The truth is that the Hoges of the world are going the way of the dinosaur on today’s PGA Tour, where macros are counted and inflammatory foods are avoided. The shift towards wellness is particularly visible at Sawgrass, where a large, permanent gym buffets the Tour’s traveling fleet of wellness vehicles. Those vehicles, named the “Performance Center,” welcome licensed physical therapists, psychologists, trainers and a nutritionist to nearly every event on the schedule.
“Basically, what I want is for our athletes to have the same type of services that a professional sports team [has],” said Andy Levinson, the Tour’s SVP of tournament administration. “So we try to have all the same types of equipment, the same services, everything.”
But not every change is quite so mundane — at the Players Championship, the Tour threw a bone to the Hoges of the world by welcoming a first-of-its-kind addition to the player, caddie and family dining scene: Chipotle.
The omnipresent fast-casual brand was a late addition to the fold for Players week, setting up shop in a small tent just behind the player scoring area. While the menu isn’t quite as scientifically sourced or nutritionally dense as the traditional offerings in player dining, it didn’t take long to become a Tour favorite.
“The 17th is the most-photographed location at TPC Sawgrass this week,” said one security guard working out front of the tent on Thursday morning. “But this area might be second.”
Chipotle says they have committed to providing 400 meals per day at the Players through a limited menu of burritos and burrito bowls. The customization options have been trimmed to include only the most popular (and most healthy) menu items, which are cooked in an attached, full-service kitchen by staff sourced from locations throughout the Jacksonville area. At the end of the day, extra meals are given away to security and tournament staff.
The Chipotle tent.GOLF
Throughout the day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the tent was a hub of activity among the competing class. In addition to Scheffler, golfers like Maverick McNealy (who is said to plan his tournament weeks around Chipotle visits) and Max Homa were regulars, along with a host of caddies, tournament staff and other players. The love affair had a simple reasoning: the food is relatively healthy, easy to find, and dependably good — three traits that can be elusive in a lifetime spent on the road.
“When I leave on Sunday, it’s my tradition to eat some bad shit — usually my favorite airport candy,” Homa, who picked up a Chipotle sponsorship last year, told GOLF with a grin. “Otherwise, I try to eat pretty healthy. I’m not counting calories or anything, but good food helps.”
Homa’s spin on nutrition is relatively open-minded. He tries to eat “healthy” during tournaments and competitions, but his diet isn’t too restrictive. He stays away from red meat in the evenings, but eats the rainbow. Scheffler is similar, though his Chipotle habits did gain some fame at the Open Championship in July.
“There’s one right where I grew up, kind of near SMU’s campus. If I was to go to that Chipotle and try to eat nowadays, it would be very difficult for me,” Scheffler said. “There’s another one in a different part of town that I’m not going to tell you where it is, but if I go there, nobody recognizes me ever.”
The unifying theory is not devotion to the brand but to the lifestyle. Pro golfers are willing to do big things for small advantages — and silly as it sounds, a burrito bowl is an instrument in pursuit of those goals.
“It’s been cool to see people realize that nutrition is actually quite personal,” Homa said. “Like, lettuce is good in the salad, but some people don’t digest lettuce. So I think it’s gotten a lot more personalized versus back in the day. When I was growing up, it was, you know, candy’s bad, this is good.”
On Saturday at the Players Championship, the spectrum of personal choice was on full display. As players flooded in from a weathering moving day at TPC Sawgrass, the choices facing players were as dizzying as they were varied. Lunch or recovery? Range time or putting practice? Burrito or bowl?
The World No. 1 pondered each of these things as he headed off the 18th green at TPC Sawgrass and towards scoring. A few minutes later, Scottie Scheffler had settled on a solution.
“Barbacoa in a bowl,” the bean-scooper who served him repeated later with a smile. “A little bit of everything inside.”
James Colgan is a news and features editor at GOLF, writing stories for the website and magazine. He manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and utilizes his on-camera experience across the brand’s platforms. Prior to joining GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, during which time he was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, where he is from. He can be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.
