Scottie Scheffler expects to be 'rewarded for the good shots and punished for the bad ones' at 2024 PGA Championship course - "Put the ball in play"
Scottie Scheffler will be one of the main attractions at the 2024 PGA Championship being played at Valhalla Golf Club beginning Thursday, May 16. Scheffler will tee off at Valhalla for the first time this week and had words of praise for the course.
PGA Championship organizers interviewed Scottie Scheffler about the course conditions just hours before the start of the event. Scheffler described Valhalla as an "appropriate test of golf." He was quoted as saying:
"With any major championship, there's a lot more pressure. The golf courses are always a bit tougher and this is a place where I feel like when you're hitting it really well, the golf course can open up for you, and there's definitely a lot of holes where you've got to put the ball in play."
"I think, as players, what we look for is just the best test of golf," Scheffler added. "Not necessarily what the winning score is going to be - just because it's even par doesn't mean that it was a great test of golf."
"I think what we're looking for is to be rewarded for good shots and punished for the bad ones and, for what I've seen around this golf course, it, you know, it seems like an appropriate test."
Valhalla Golf Club has previously hosted three Majors and the Ryder Cup. It was the venue of the 1996, 2000, and 2014 PGA Championship and the 2008 Ryder Cup.
Scottie Scheffler made his debut in Major championships in 2016 when he played the US Open while still an amateur (he was cut). He made his debut in the PGA Championship as well as The Masters in 2020. Scheffler made his debut in The Open Championship in 2021.
Scottie Scheffler: "I don't really pay attention to it"
Scottie Scheffler held his pre-PGA Championship press conference on Tuesday. Among the many topics he discussed was his status as the favorite to win the title. Scheffler said:
"If it was two months ago it would probably look significantly different than it does now. I'm sure that wasn't a conversation... I don't really pay attention to it, I don't really care about it. I'm trying to do the best I can out there each and every week."
Scottie Scheffler will be playing the first two rounds of the PGA Championship with Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark. His tee time will be 2:13 pm (Eastern Time) on Thursday and 8:48 am (ET) on Friday.
Scheffler has played in four editions of the PGA Championship prior to 2024, making three cuts. All three times he has finished in the Top 10, with a second-place finish in 2023 his best result. He finished tied for second with Viktor Hovland, two strokes behind Brooks Koepka.
Scottie Scheffler was in contention from the start at Oak Hill in 2023 and even shared the lead after the second round. In the third round, he could only manage a score of 73 which moved him four strokes behind Koepka for the first place.
During the final round, Scheffler tied the lowest record score of the event (65) but it was not enough to recover the deficit as Koepka shot 67. The LIV Golf star eventually lifted the Wanamaker Trophy.