Looking for PGA Tour thrills? Scottie Scheffler might get in the way

The fellow who clambered up that 101-story skyscraper in Taiwan the other day without any safety gear or ropes said he got an “embarrassingly small” fee for the hands-over-the-eyes, death-defying caper.

Did you see any of it, by the way? For those of us who find the daily going on terra firma unbearably heavy at times, the sight of Alex Honnold scaling a 1,167-foot edifice with carefree nonchalance was quite a bewildering spectacle.

According to the experts, Honnold’s brain generates far less fear than your average Joe.

Apparently, some neuroscientists studied him and found that his amygdala, the bit in the head that’s crucial for emotional processing, requires a significantly higher level of threat to be activated.

Perhaps the golf writers could introduce Alex to a seething Colin Montgomerie after the Scot has just three-putted from five feet on the last and get him to ask, “Monty, can we have a summing up of the round, please?”

Now that would get the amygdala thingamabob going like the hammers of hell, wouldn’t it?

Having been on tenterhooks watching the bold Honnold shinnying up here and dangling over there, it was something of a comforting escape to watch the down-to-earth Scottie Scheffler ease to victory in the American Express last week.

In his first outing of 2026, normal service resumed for the all-conquering world No 1 after a six-win season in 2025. It was an ominous sign for those playing catch-up.

Forget climbing a skyscraper unaided. Reeling in Scheffler at the top of the global rankings must feel like a terrifying prospect. His position at the summit is so fortified, it may as well have a moat and portcullis.

This was Scheffler’s 20th tour triumph. It’s easy to forget that he’s accumulated all these in just 79 starts over the last four years. Before this prolonged purple patch, he hadn’t won in 72 events. It’s a heck of an effort.

At just 29, he’s only the third player, after Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, to hit the 20-win milestone, and have at least four major titles in that haul before their 30th birthday.

The wearisome comparisons with Woods and Nicklaus – can he win more majors than them, etc., etc. – will roar on. Not that Scheffler himself will give any of that much thought.

He remains largely unaffected by fame and fortune, and all the talk of greatness tends to be greeted with the kind of shrug of indifference the sports editor delivers when I ask him what he thought of the column.

While the greed, egos and entitlement of golf’s civil war in recent years sullied the game’s reputation, Scheffler’s gracious, grounded rise to prominence has been a perfect antidote to those ills.

Given all the fist-shaking, verbal volleys, crass comments and legal wranglings of the past few seasons, it’s hardly surprising that the calmest man in the clubhouse has prevailed.

After he won The Open at Portrush last summer, Scheffler gave us all a little glimpse into how his life had changed. And, indeed, hadn’t changed.

“There are two Chipotles (a restaurant chain) that I eat at when I’m home,” he said. “If I was to go to the one near to where I grew up and try to eat nowadays, it would be very difficult for me.

“But there's another one in a different part of town and if I go there, nobody recognizes me ever.”

Scheffler’s relative anonymity, of course, can highlight golf’s place in the wider scheme of global sports.

Apart from say Woods or Rory McIlroy, the golfing superstars can’t hold a candle to the leading lights in other pursuits.

Take an intrepid excursion into the depths of the Amazon rainforest, for instance, and you’ll probably stumble upon a member of the remote Kawahiva tribe wearing a Lionel Messi fitba shirt or a LeBron James basketball vest.

Yes, I’m being typically frivolous here, but you get the idea. These sportsmen have a vast reach across cultures and continents.

Scheffler, meanwhile, could amble down a high street, or into a different Chipotle diner for that matter, and most folk wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He’d probably have to climb up the Taipei 101 tower in the scuddy just to get noticed.

Either that or get arrested again as he did during the 2024 PGA Championship for a stooshie with a Louisville police officer which, eventually, came to nothing as all charges were subsequently dropped. It was the most un-Scottie situation ever.

In a narcissistic, celebrity-obsessed world, in which folk would actually shove their granny off a bus, film it and upload it to Instagram in the hope they’d get a few ‘likes’, Scheffler is often viewed as dull. Less box office, more day at the office.

That, of course, does his sublime talent and tremendous achievements a huge disservice.

He’d no doubt have a higher profile if he was prone to lively, controversial antics on and off the course or delivered headline-grabbing soundbites at every press conference.

But that’s not the Scheffler way. Here in 2026, his own way means it's business as usual. The rest have been warned.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour: Scottie Scheffler could dominate without becoming recognizable