PGA Championship
PGA Championship 2024: Scottie Scheffler kept repeating this reaction to birth of his son: 'It was nuts!'
Scottie Scheffler and wife Meredith celebrated his win at Bay Hill in March.
Keyur Khamar
LOUISVILLE — If he didn’t quite grasp it before, Scottie Scheffler now understands there’s a more heroic figure in his family who doesn’t hit golf balls for a living. Last Tuesday, Scheffler’s wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, a boy they named Bennett. And from the sound of it, Scottie was in awe of his high school sweetheart and partner in life for every moment of the experience.
“I think it's just wild watching Meredith go through that. It's just nuts,” Scheffler said Tuesday in his press conference ahead of the start of the 2024 PGA Championship on Thursday. “I don't really know how to describe it, watching the little dude come out of Meredith.”
Until the moment their son arrived, the couple didn’t know the gender. “So being able to tell my wife that it was a boy, yeah, it was a wild ride,” he said. Scheffler said Meredith was “glowing.”
“Extremely proud of Meredith after watching her go through that. It's nuts,” he said. “I'm glad it was her going through it and not me because I don't know if I could have done it. It was pretty nuts.”
We get the idea. It was nuts.
It was, of course, a memorable Mother’s Day for the couple at home in Dallas, and then Monday was Meredith’s birthday.
“So, it was a fun five, six days for us,” Scottie said. “She's doing well, recovering nicely. We're very fortunate to be in this position with a healthy mom and healthy baby. Hopefully that will continue.”
Scheffler now turns back to his job as the world’s No. 1 player who is on a monster heater. The 27-year-old has won four of his last five starts, including back-to-back wins in the Masters and RBC Heritage before taking a break for the birth of the baby. It was a time of well-earned reflection.
“It was a nice time to reflect a little bit on my career so far and where my life has gone,” he said. “I married my high school sweetheart and I always wanted to play professional golf and now I'm here. I was sitting there with a newborn in my arms and the green jacket in the closet. It was a pretty special time I think at home.”
Scheffler added, however, that this competitiveness doesn’t allow him to be overly satisfied, and he did his best to prepare for what will be his first competitive start at Valhalla Golf Club. Though he doesn’t have a PGA victory yet, he’s been strong in this major, with three top-10s in four starts, including a T-2 last year at Oak Hill.
“With soft greens and soft fairways, I'd imagine the scores would be fairly low here,” said Scheffler, who has played a total of 18 holes at Valhalla in the first two days on-site. “… But with any major championship, there's a lot more pressure. The golf courses are always a bit tougher. This is a place where I feel like when you're hitting it really well, the golf course can open up for you, and there's definitely a lot of holes where you've got to put the ball in play, just with the thick rough. A lot of good elevation change around this golf course.”
All three PGAs played at Valhalla have been won with double-digit totals under par—Mark Brooks at 11 under in 1996, Tiger Woods at 18 under in 2000 and Rory McIlroy at 16 under in 2014. And Scheffler doesn’t necessarily see that has a knock on the test or entertainment value of the course.
“I think around this golf course you've got a good mix of holes, and as players we look for the best test of golf, not necessarily what the winning score is going to be,” he said. “Just because it's even par doesn't mean it was a great test of golf. I think what we're looking for is be rewarded for good shots and punished for bad ones, and from what I've seen around this golf course, it seems like an appropriate test.”