PGA Championship pressure for Scottie Scheffler? "Tiger Woods is here so nobody remembers I am!"
Scheffler, chasing a fifth victory of the year, will partner fellow major champions Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa over the first two rounds in Oklahoma; Watch the PGA Championship live on Thursday from 1pm on Sky Sports Golf
Last Updated: 18/05/22 10:17pm
Scottie Scheffler insists he doesn’t feel any extra expectation coming into the PGA Championship as world No 1 and golf’s most recent major champion.
The 25-year-old started the year searching for his maiden PGA Tour victory but is now chasing a fifth win in just 98 days after a remarkable start to 2022.
Scheffler followed his breakthrough success at the WM Phoenix Open with further titles at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, lifting him to the top of the world rankings, before the American continued his streak with a three-shot victory at The Masters.
The world No 1 is among the favourites to add to his major tally at Southern Hills, where he won the Big-12 Championship for the University of Texas in 2015, although Scheffler has vowed not to get carried away with his recent run of results.
"Tiger's here so nobody really remembers that I'm here, so it's all good," Scheffler said. "I don't feel any different. I don't get any extra shots this week.
"It's nice to have the ranking, but at the end of the day when I show up at a tournament, I don't have any advantages over the field other than we all start even par. For me, it's a tremendous honour, but at the end of the day when I show up to a tournament, I'm starting at even."
Scheffler, who was fourth on his PGA Championship debut at Harding Park in 2020 and eighth at Kiawah Island last year, will partner fellow major champions Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa - the next two below him in the world rankings - over the first two rounds in Oklahoma.
When asked whether he enjoys the extra attention after his rapid rise, Scheffler added: "Living in the moment is usually what works best for me. I don't want to get too high or too low. If you guys [the media] are really building me up then I may not prepare as hard because I show up thinking I'm the guy, I'm the man and no-one can touch me.
"That doesn't work for me and if I show up too low and you guys are saying 'Scottie doesn't have it, he's not any good any more', I'm going to show up and maybe prepare too hard and I'm not going to get enough rest.
"For me, staying in my own lane and doing my own thing is what works best. I've really just performed my best when I've kept my head down and not really paid attention to anything else."
Rahm is the only player who can overtake Scheffler at the top of the world rankings this week, with the Spaniard requiring a victory and for the current world No 1 to finish outside the top five. The US Open champion spent two days at Southern Hills last week, with Rahm now looking to follow his Mexico Open win earlier this month with another title.
"I don't know if I needed more confidence, but it [Mexico Open victory] was definitely…a win is a win, obviously," Rahm said. "Hadn't had my best year so far. I had a couple of really good finishes, but since Torrey [Pines], I wasn't really relevant on the leaderboard, so it was nice to be up there and get the win."
On this week's test, Rahm added: "You have to do everything well. There's no surprise that the winning scores here have been as high as they have in the past and just a few people make it under par. Iron game needs to be good, short game, putting, driving, everything, otherwise something really will have to excel for something else to be lacking."
Who will win the PGA Championship? Watch throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage begins on Thursday from 1pm on Sky Sports Golf.
