An Open question

They're off and running in the British Open at Royal Portrush as I write this, and I'm wondering where Scottie Scheffler's head is right now. I'm wondering if he has his mind right. I'm wondering ...

Ah, hell. I'm wondering if he'll actually get some lasting joy out of the experience if he gets to lay his hands on the Claret Jug come Sunday afternoon.

That's my open question for The Open this week. And it's one I find more than a little sad.

I find it sad because, this week, the best golfer in the world said golf doesn't really do it for him. He's devoted most of his 29 years to it, spent hours upon hours learning to make wedges nestle and drives sail plumb-bob straight, and yet ...

And yet, he says it's not "a fulfilling life." Says he hungers to win as much as anyone, and when he does the moment will fill him to the top. But then it's gone, and it's on to the next wedge, the next drive, the next tournament, the next challenge.

As an example, he offered the Byron Nelson Classic in Fort Worth, which is Scheffler's hometown tournament and the one he wanted to win perhaps more than any other. And then he did, and the joy lasted about as long as the flavor in a stick of Fruit Stripe gum.

"You win it, you celebrate, get to hug the family, my sister's there, it's such an amazing moment," he said this week. "Then it's like 'OK, what are we going to eat for dinner?' Life goes on. It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes."

And, sure, if that's a measure of the guy's competitive drive to win -- a drive that has won him three majors before the age of 30 -- there's also an unavoidable regret that comes with it. That aforementioned drive is utterly remorseless, and it turns life into an endless treadmill for the man or woman who possesses it. Winning just means there's more winning to be done.

Or at least I think that's what Scheffler was trying to say.

The sad part is he seems self-aware enough to understand that, and to understand he's helpless against it. It is, after all, not just the way he's made but the way the world is made these days -- which is why, a nanosecond after the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA championship last month, the sporting media was already speculating whether or not they could repeat.

I hope we don't hear that two seconds after Scheffler's last putt circles the jar and drops, and he wins The Open, if he wins The Open. 

I hope he savors not just the moment he hoists the Claret Jug for the cameras, but for other moments several months hence.

I hope he takes the time to look at it in the year it will be in his possession, run his fingers over it, remember everything about that momentous weekend at Royal Portrush. I hope there will be a little twinge in his gut when he has to bring it back, unlike this year's defending champion Xander Schauffle.

Who took the Claret Jug to a home devoid of  memorabilia; the only golf photo of himself is one his wife hung high enough that he couldn't reach it, and all his trophies are at his parents' house. He doesn't know exactly where ("Probably in a bank vault," he said this week), and he has no clue where his Olympic gold medal is. And doesn't seem particularly perturbed by that.

"What am I going to do with it?" he said this week about the Claret Jug. "I don't really invite people over to my house. Am I just going to look at it myself?"

Well ... yes. Because isn't that the point of all this?