Rory McIlroy: I'm not going to give Scottie Scheffler any more advice, that's for sure

Scheffler turned up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a mallet putter, on McIlroy's advice, and destroyed the field by making every putt inside of 15 feet to win by five shots.

WISE WORDS: Two weeks after Rory McIlroy opened his mouth and suggested that Scottie Scheffler might want to consider switching to a mallet putter to break out of an extended slump with the flat stick, Scheffler turned up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a mallet putter and destroyed the field. AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack.

In 50 years of the Players Championship, no winner has ever successfully defended his title. That streak is at stake this week with the world No. 1’s bid greatly enhanced by an assist from the world No. 2.

Two weeks after Rory McIlroy opened his mouth and suggested that Scottie Scheffler might want to consider switching to a mallet putter to break out of an extended slump with the flat stick, Scheffler turned up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a mallet putter and destroyed the field by making every putt inside of 15 feet on the weekend to win by five shots.

“I'm not going to give him any more advice, that's for sure,” McIlroy said, using more family friendly language that fellow Irishman Shane Lowry had for McIlroy after getting lapped by Scheffler in the final pairing at Bay Hill.

It’s been no secret that the only thing keeping Scheffler from running away from everybody else in the world and taking his Pro V1 with him has been his putter. Every other element of his game has been menacing, posting 23 top-12 finishes in 27 starts since the start of 2023.

Scheffler ranked 162nd in strokes gained putting last season and arrived at Bay Hill ranked 144th in the same category in the first two months of 2024. Not exactly the improvement he was hoping to make when he started working with putting guru Phil Kenyon last fall.

Then Rory opened his mouth.

In a CBS interview at the Genesis Invitational, McIlroy suggested Scheffler switch away from his traditional blade putter.

“I've certainly been through my fair share of putting woes over the years, and I finally feel like I’ve broken through and become a pretty consistent putter,” McIlroy said on the air at Riviera.

“For me, going to a mallet was a big change … so I’d love to see Scottie try a mallet.” McIlroy, and collaterally Lowry, learned the hard way to careful what you say.

“You know me, I get asked a question and I give an honest answer. Honest to a fault,” McIlroy said Wednesday at Sawgrass.

“It's hard when you're asked about other player’s game, it's hard to say something about another peer of yours who is maybe struggling with a part of their game. So I tried to really just make it about myself and say when I struggled with my putting, this is what I did and it helped me.

“I didn't think he would do it straight away and go on to win by five the next week out. Scottie is an unbelievable ball striker. He doesn't even need to putt well, he just needs to putt average and he's always going to have a chance because of how good he hits it.

"So yeah, I like a challenge. If someone like Scottie figures it out, if I was a fan it's good for the game. It's good to see someone play at that level and it's up to all of us to try to catch him.”

Scheffler admits he heard about Rory’s comments, but the move might have already been in place.

“It was just kind of funny timing,” Scheffler said of a change that he only made after testing out a different mallet for two week’s in last year’s FedEx Cup playoffs and did some extensive testing at home before making the move at Bay Hill.

After a couple of shaky moments on the greens early in the week at Bay Hill, Scheffler and his new putter dialed in on Sunday as he pulled away at Arnie’s place. For the week he ranked fifth in strokes gained putting, a lethal additive to his usual excellence in every other strokes gained category.

“It’s frustrating to not have the best of myself, just because I know that I can putt really well,” Scheffler said.

“It’s not like I’ve been a bad putter my whole career. I’ve just gone through a stretch where it’s been tough. I think this week I did a really good job of not letting the misses get to me.”

If Scheffler keeps it up on the greens this week at the Stadium Course, he could be tough to beat. If so, McIlroy’s tip could go down along side the worst self-inflicted damages since Steve Stricker gave Tiger Woods a putting lesson on the Sunday morning of the 2013 WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral.

The proved to be a $620,000 lesson for Stricker as Woods employed the tips and went out and beat him that afternoon.

Scheffler has been on a sustained run of consistent success rarely seen in golf – even is he did go a full 365 days between official PGA Tour victories from last year’s Players to last week’s API. Scheffler did win the 20-man offseason Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.

Now he needs to win in consecutive weeks to achieve a feat that has eluded every other Players champion. The closest anyone has ever come is a T5 in their defense – Jack Nicklaus (1977), Tom Kite (1990) and Hal Sutton (2001).

Is Scheffler the man to finally push through?

“I just think it’s a golf course where you don’t see a lot of repeat winners in general,” said Scheffler, noting that only five players have ever won twice at TPC Sawgrass.

“There’s not a guy that you have seen win on this golf course a bunch. I think it’s just the nature of the course, it doesn’t really suit one type of player. It really is a Pete Dye kind of genius design, where you have to hit all different kinds of shots, and it tests you in a lot of different ways.

“That’s why I think it’s one of the best places we play on tour, just because it really doesn’t suit one type of player. Bomb and gouge doesn’t really work out here, you kind of got to plot your way around. 

"But then you even have the shorter hitters that plot it around that can struggle here, because you got to hit it exactly where you’re looking or you’re going to be punished pretty severely out here.” Justin Thomas, who failed in his title defense opportunity here in 2022, certainly think Scheffler has what it takes to defy history.

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous how good at golf he is,” said Thomas, who will play with Scheffler and Rickie Fowler in Thursday’s afternoon wave.

“It’s impressive. … It’s just he just plots his way along and gets around and he just does it better than everybody else in the world, and he’s done it better than everybody for a really long time.”

This week is just another chance to prove it. If Scheffler does with another week of pristine putting, players can forward their concerns and complaints to McIlroy.