A curious email landed in my inbox Thursday morning. Subject line: “Scheffler’s Ravioli incident.” It came from a GOLF.com reader who suggested that Scottie Scheffler was refreshingly forthcoming in his press conference with detail about his Christmas Day kitchen accident, and how isn’t that kind of what Justin Thomas was suggesting with his letter to Tour members last week? That players need to be more open to sharing pieces of themselves?
While I appreciate the attempt at connecting some recent dots, Thomas was talking mostly about TV broadcasts and not what players reveal to the press-center proletariat. But the email still sparked a thought in my mind: Wow, that really was transparent from Scottie Scheffler. And it followed a lengthy press conference from Rory McIlroy. And it preceded a 31-minute existential deep dive with Jordan Spieth.
Is it just me, or are players actually enjoying themselves in front of the media this week?
I texted one of the writers who was in Monterey asking questions in those pressers. His response: that was the best version of Scottie I’ve ever seen.
Yes! I couldn’t type my response quickly enough. I thought the same thing!
Scheffler, like most pros over time, has grown more comfortable in front of the media. He’s admitted to me and other Tour staffers in the past — once that red light comes on and there’s a high-def camera lens pointing at you, it’s all a bit discomforting. But with time and exposure therapy (see: many, many wins), he has improved, and his Tuesday appearance was especially good. We were already 21 minutes in to Scheffler’s presser when he was asked about his favorite Pebble Beach hole. He gave us two colorful minutes on Pebble’s charm, old trees, the pitch of the greens and how it compares to modern, 8,000-yard courses.
All of that without directly answering the question.
When prompted for a more detail, on he went again, with another 90-second reflection on the quirkiness of the course and how decades-old design choices stand the test of time. Naturally, an excited reporter followed up with, Uh, do you want to be an architect someday?
Scheffler is certain that shaping golf courses isn’t in his immediate future. But for the first press conference in a quite awhile, it felt like he didn’t want to cut it short. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He seemed to be enjoying being part of the PGA Tour machine again. These are the fruits of the Tour’s new offseason.
You could see it in Spieth and McIlroy, too, each of whom went deep on 2025 expectations, tough things that happened to them in 2024 and goals that it may take 10 years to achieve. Everyone is on a journey, but their journey is worth watching. Scheffler’s press conference clocked in at 28 minutes, the same for McIlroy, while Spieth’s cracked half an hour (31 minutes, to be exact). For context, virtually no pressers reach the 30-minute mark these days, unless they’re led by Tiger Woods. That’s largely because there often isn’t a ton to discuss.
But this week is a launching point for three of the game’s biggest stars — on the heels of elongated breaks from each, in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Their willingness to answer questions honestly and at length, and take those press conferences somewhere we didn’t expect is a good reminder that creating some space in the calendar allows for us to feel a sense of scarcity with them — and, conversely, them with us. For reporters to really want to pry for more specific detail, and for pros to want to share it, too. (Kind of like what Thomas was asking for in his letter.)
“I think 47 to 50 events a year is too many,” McIlroy said Tuesday. He was referring to the PGA Tour calendar. You could count it in events or you could count it in months, because despite the season being a January through August sprint, Tour events are played every month of the year, and have been for a long time. Whether or not FedEx Cup points are being dished out or pros are gathering in the Bahamas, the Tour really doesn’t turn off the faucet. At one point in the early 2000s, that was a sound business decision. But in 2025, there’s some value in creating a break.
Your favorite newsletter doesn’t hit your inbox three times a day. It might just be once a week. The best TV shows make you wait more than a year for the next season. When there’s always another tournament next week, it never feels like players are coming back to something. Because it never feels like they’ve left. It doesn’t allow for us to yearn for McIlroy on our screen, or in front of a podium. And it definitely doesn’t allow for McIlroy to want the microphone, either.
McIlroy has elevated the scarcity talking point frequently, including this week, referencing how breaks works for other sports leagues. At some point in June, all of men’s pro basketball ceases and you won’t be watching Giannis or Jokic or LeBron for another four months. The next time you’ll see Josh Allen take a competitive snap will be seven months from now. The next important interview he gives will likely be after the NFL draft, a full three months away. Much as Allen wishes he was playing next week, settling in to scarcity is healthy for him, too.
Back to Scheffler, Spieth and McIlroy. Unsurprisingly, these three pros are among the league leaders in sharing concerns about the schedule. McIlroy is keenly aware what event burnout looks like for him — something like 2024, when he played 27 times, inclusive of a forced break between majors — prompting him to carve out only about 22 events for this year. He wants another full month at home with his family. Scheffler and Spieth would both earn big contracts to play in TGL, the newfound simulator league that has recruited many of the game’s best players. But both Scheffler and Spieth have young and growing families and don’t want to add more to their plates. Both are getting started late this year because of hand/wrist injuries (two very different issues, it should be noted), but that time away has clearly given them a healthy break from the machine. There may be something to be learned from that.
Much as it may hinder my work — and the Tour’s marketing opportunities — it’s probably true that top-level Tour players make too many media appearances. When Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship in consecutive weeks last year, he went on the record eight days out of 10, sometimes multiple times a day with different outlets on different platforms, answering many of the same queries. Between the Masters and the RBC Heritage, he met the press on 10 days out of 13. Between Memorial and the Travelers, it was 15 days out of 21.
We may not be sympathetic to that first-world plight, but it was no wonder that Scheffler showed some media fatigue in 2024. We couldn’t blame him for not wanting to immediately reflect on all his success — a common question — or to weigh in on what it’s like to do Tiger Woods things in the middle of doing Tiger Woods things. The same has happened to both McIlroy and Spieth during their best seasons, too. Instead, Scheffler’s constant presence in the press room became an exercise in sameness — similar answers, and an inclination from Scheffler to reveal as little as possible. This pattern is true for many other professional athletes inundated with constant requests. But does it ultimately deliver on what we’re all hoping to get out of it, a better understanding of athletes at their peak?
The answer appears to be no and sits in stark contrast during weeks like this, when a refreshed No. 1 has had some time away from us, and us from him. He’s back to claim his throne and ready to talk about it, too.
