PGA Championship 2026: Second is better than 15th, but after 3 straight runners-up, Scottie Scheffler only wants 1 thing

In other words, he should have found a way to win a few more. It’s no mystery to Scheffler what has thwarted his bids at victory. He’s a tortoise in opening rounds and then plays like a hare on fire in the following rounds.

“A little bit of it is bittersweet. Finishing second in a golf tournament is not bad, but, I mean, especially in the way I did it in a couple of them. I was spotting guys so many strokes going into the weekend, mainly the Masters. Didn't have a very good chance going into the weekend there,” said Scheffler, a two-time Masters champion who trailed McIlroy by 12 strokes after 36 holes at Augusta National and lost by one shot.

“You know you're playing good golf, and you'd love to get some wins,” he added, his face contorting slightly as if his words seemed to cause a pain in his side. “Finishing second hurts, but I think when you reflect and you're looking at things to work on, there's a lot less to clean up when you're finishing second than there is when you're finishing 30th.”

Um, Scheffler hasn’t finished that low in a tournament since the 2024 BMW Championship, where he was T-33. Since then he’s been in the top 25 in 30 straight starts.

It’s worth noting that his three runner-up finishes have come against players ranked second (McIlroy at the Masters), seventh (Matt Fitzpatrick at RBC Heritage, via playoff) and third (Young at Cadillac).

Scheffler did manage to look on the disappointments philosophically, when reminded that many of his peers would be encouraged by just breaking into the top 10.

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“I'd much rather have to sit here and be like, ‘Hey, how come you didn't win last week? Versus, he finished 15th, like that was a pretty good start for you, game's starting to turn around,’” he said. “It's a lot better playing good golf. Good golf is always better than bad golf.”

And there is little doubt Scheffler still is playing good golf. He knows it. And it was reflected in his work at home in Dallas last week. He was not searching. He was not grinding. He was fine tuning.

“I'm just kind of going through my checkpoints,” he said in reference to his practice agenda. “I had played some pretty decent golf over the few weeks leading up. So sometimes if my game feels like it's in a pretty good spot, a lot of it is checking the boxes and making sure things feel the way they should feel heading into a tournament like this.

“There's other times throughout the year where maybe I don't feel as good with where my swing's at, and maybe not hole a lot of putts. But overall the last few weeks I've played some nice golf. So a lot of it was make sure I got rest, made sure I checked the boxes, and made sure things feel the way I want them to feel heading into a major championship. And just get the mind right to come out here and play.”

The only thing left to do is check the box on Sunday that has him holding the Wanamaker Trophy again. It’s not easy to win, which with Scheffler is easy to forget.