Scottie Scheffler stirred a lot of discussion by saying that he doesn't find true fulfillment in winning, just days before capturing his fourth career major title at last year's Open Championship.
Nine months later, he is back at Augusta National, where the 29-year-old is already a two-time Masters champion. He is also recently a two-time father, with wife Meredith giving birth to son Remy last month.
Always careful not to mix the two, Scheffler has no problem keeping his professional and personal lives from becoming overly intertwined.
"I would say it's always been a battle for me trying to strike a balance between continuing to work hard, staying competitive, and also not having my – either my good golf or my bad golf – define me," he said Tuesday. "Because that could go one of two ways. If I let my bad golf define me, I'd be a pretty miserable person. If I let my good golf define me, whether or not it's a green jacket or an Open Championship, then I'd walk around pretty arrogant all the time and I wouldn't be very nice to people because I think I'm hot stuff because I won a few golf tournaments."
Scheffler has won quite a few golf tournaments – 20 on the PGA Tour. Two of those have come at Augusta, where he won in 2022 and 2025 and has yet to finish outside of the top-20 in six previous appearances.
He returned this week with his family. He called Meredith "a trooper" as she runs point handling Remy's sleep schedule along with taking care of the couple's other son, Bennett.
That allows Scheffler to focus on his job, which he still takes great enjoyment in working on. Nowhere more than at Augusta.
"This place is almost a challenge in a sense that you need to be able to get your stuff done and go home because I could camp out on that range for days and days and continue to practice," he said. "It's a pretty nice place to be."
On Thursday, Scheffler will continue his quest to become just the seventh player in history to win the Masters at least three times. It's a tournament he believes all American golfers grow up wanting to get to, and enjoys the tranquility of a venue devoid of cellphones and chock full of respectful patrons.
"I truly feel that once you drive down Magnolia Lane, everything else melts away, and you get to be here and be focused. There's not a lot of distractions this week," he said. "For us as players, it's really an enjoyable experience.
"The forecast looks great. It's going to get firm and fast. I would imagine they would like the greens to get fast. I think that increases the challenge of the golf course. I'm excited to see how it plays this week. We might get a little bit of wind too. The golf course is shaping up nicely."
Scheffler declined to speculate on the state of his game. He hasn't teed it up in competition since tying for 22nd at The Players Championship, then withdrawing from the Houston Open the following week due to Remy's pending birth.
He has a win this year at The American Express, which was followed by a pair of top-5s, but then slipped to T12 at the Genesis and T24 at the Arnold Palmer before The Players. For now, Scheffler is camping out on that practice range, working to see what nuances Augusta National has introduced this year and planning for how the course might play with firm and fast conditions expected with a warm forecast.
"I try not to look too far in the past, I try not to look too far in the future," he said. "For me to think about (the state of my game), that would take a little bit of work, which I don't want to do right now."