Scheffler returns home as a legend
Spieth knows what that’s like
McKINNEY, Texas — Jordan Spieth remembers coming to his hometown Byron Nelson a few weeks after winning the Masters for his first major seven years ago.
Now the three-time major champion will get to watch Scottie Scheffler do the same thing in their pairing Thursday at TPC Craig Ranch, the second-year home of the Nelson.
“I’ve come here and played this tournament after winning the Masters ...” Spieth said. “I’m kind of interested to almost be a little bit of a bystander in that situation and watch kind of the extra craziness surrounding Scottie’s return here home after winning.”
The top-ranked player and winner of four of his last six individual events capped by the Masters, Scheffler is now the co-headliner with Spieth. Both grew up in Dallas and starred at the University of Texas.
Scheffler said he and Spieth, who contended as a 16-year-old high schooler in his first pro event at the 2010 Nelson, talked recently about the possibility of playing together near home as fellow major winners for the first time.
“It should be a pretty fun environment for both of us,” Scheffler said. “Jordan’s an easy guy for me to play golf with and he’s fun to watch as well. Hopefully, we’ll draw a little bit of a crowd and make some birdies for them.”
There’s one difference from Spieth’s experience in 2015. The PGA Championship was at the end of the summer then. Now it’s the next event, at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Four days in the Texas heat, humidity and wind, just a couple of hundred miles south of a similar climate in Tulsa, should help Scheffler, Spieth and the rest of the 10 players among the world’s top 30 in the Nelson field.
While the forecast suggests players won’t have to worry much about the heat in Tulsa, temperatures for the Nelson are expected in the 90s all four days. But rain isn’t, a year after it plagued Craig Ranch’s debut, won by South Korea’s K.H. Lee.
The par-72 Craig Ranch layout, designed by Tom Weiskopf, won’t be nearly the test of Southern Hills in a week. Still, world No. 8 Justin Thomas has his mind on prepping — along with winning.
“If it’s easy then it doesn’t get you ready for hard, but then if it’s too tough then you beat yourself up and you’re exhausted going into next week,” Thomas said. “So I would like to say this is kind of a perfect balance and a good mixture.”
SAUDI LEAGUE: Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter didn’t want to talk about the PGA Tour’s decision to deny releases to members who asked to play in the first of a series of Saudi-funded tournaments next month in England.
Tour loyalists were happy to weigh in at the Byron Nelson on Wednesday, the day before the Dallas-area event. Their theme: more power to anyone who wants to join Greg Norman’s latest bid to create a lucrative rival league.
“Look, if you want to go, go,” said Thomas, the eighth-ranked player in the world. “There’s been plenty of guys that have been advocates of it and have just talked it up all the time and they have been guys behind the scenes that are saying, ‘I’m going, I’m doing this.’
“And, like, my whole thing is, like, just go then.”
Westwood, who has confirmed seeking releases from the PGA and European tours, responded to a reporter by saying he knew what he would be asked and didn’t want to answer questions on the topic. Poulter is among those identified by The Daily Telegraph as seeking releases. He hopped in a golf cart after his Nelson pro-am round and said he had to be somewhere.
The first LIV Golf Invitational is scheduled for June 9-11 at Centurion Golf Club outside of London, with a 48-man field competing for a $20 million purse over 54 holes.