The gap between Scottie Scheffler and the rest on the PGA Tour is a big one, but Max Homa is determined to “beat his ass pretty bad at some point” as he detailed the extent of the challenge the World No.1 presents.
Homa says that Scheffler, who returned to action with a first-round 69 at the RBC Heritage, is getting towards Tiger Woods levels of dominance, albeit via a completely different method, but the challenge of beating him is somewhat similar.
Although players such as Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson have dominated golf for spells over the last few years, Homa says the levels Scheffler produces consistently are “unique”.
Scheffler has been putting up Woods-esque numbers in terms of Strokes Gained dominance over the rest, and his second Masters title illustrated perfectly how his consistently high levels just grind his opposition into the dirt.
“I mean, the gap seems to be quite large,” Homa admitted. “He's gone first, second, first. Three of those events are the best fields we've got. One of them is another good field on a really difficult golf course.
“I think we've seen people do this over the years as far as excellence for time, over a little bit of time.
“His seems to be sustained a bit longer than I can remember from a lot of people. The Rorys of the world, the Tigers, the Jordans, these guys have done this for a while.
“Then he's [Scheffler] done it for a year. He does this every week. It's definitely unique what he's doing.”
Woods was the ultimate alpha on the golf course and his mere presence often scared others off from challenging, but Scheffler is more of the smiling assassin type, which offers a different if still desperately difficult challenge.
“Is it more daunting or challenging? More challenging, I would say,” said Homa. “I think it's inspiring. It makes you look at your game even more closely to figure out what you would do to get on his level.
“I think because of the Tiger era when he was just running through golf tournament after golf tournament and just annihilating everybody, it was probably more daunting because we had never seen anything like that.”
Scheffler is a likeable character, which maybe helps disarm his opponents, and while he doesn’t pull off as many wonder shots or highlight reel fillers – it’s his metronomic excellence the confounds the rest of the field.
“Scottie is tremendously talented and a hard worker and sadly, a better person. I wish I could hate him,” joked Homa. “But it's not utterly shocking what he does. He just does it over and over and over again. That's amazing.
“I feel like he almost makes it seem very realistic that we should do that. He just seems like he's playing on the driving range every day.
“It’s really amazing what he's doing. I can't believe how good he is week in and week out. I imagine it's harder than it looks, and he's just making it look so easy that I think it gives us some hope that maybe one or multiple of us can start to do something like he's doing.”
Max Homa has a new goal in life. 😂 pic.twitter.com/zxwUyW7tKnApril 17, 2024
While Homa, and the rest, may have secretly hoped for Scheffler’s wife Meredith to go into labor during The Masters, he doesn’t want the new arrival to result in the World No.1 losing his best form – as he wants to try and topple him at the pinnacle of his powers.
“No, I want to beat his a** pretty bad at some point,” Homa said. “So I'd be lying if I wasn't thinking a little bit about last week if Meredith did go into labor.
“No, the beauty of this is you want to beat the best when they're at their best. It's fun, and it's hard.
"That's the cool part about the opportunities provided us right now is that if you beat Scottie Scheffler pretty much any week, you've had a good week, and I think that's a pretty cool part of where our sport is at right now.”
