World No. 1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, missed a cut for the first time in almost four year last weekend… and now ahead of The Open, he’s talking about death and how silly the idea of “leaving a legacy” is to him.
Guess you could say he’s morphed into “Grunge Scottie” form.
Scottie Scheffler, like many other professional golfers, is currently preparing to compete in the year’s last major championship: The Open. Also referred to as a the British Open, the historic and revered major championship is being played at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England this week. Though Scottie just missed the cut at the Scottish Open last week, he’s still one of the favorites to lift up the Claret Jug.
But does he even want to win the golf tournament? Or even care what happens during his professional golf career? I only ask that question because Scottie Scheffler gave one of the deepest and most existential press conferences in the history of sports ahead of the Open Championship after he was asked about whether or not he thinks about leaving a legacy.
His response was a bit shocking:
“To be completely honest, not really. I don’t really play for a place in history. I’m not playing for anything like that. Because… this is going to sound a little morbid, but at the end of the day, I’m gonna live my life and then it’s gonna end. When it ends, I’m going somewhere else. I’m not gonna be here anymore. Legacy and all that stuff was never something that really motivated me.”
He went on to acknowledge that this quote will hilariously follow up last year’s viral “what’s the point?” press conference. But overall, he reiterated that legacy doesn’t matter to him as much as playing good golf, doing it the right way, and being competitive in the game right now. Make no mistake, Scottie wants to win, but it’s not so he can look back on it all when he’s dead and gone and bask in his own glory.
He continued later in the press conference:
“It matters more to me just in terms of like the competition. There’s things that I would like to accomplish in the game, but at the end of the day, I have never once thought about how I’m going to be remembered like that. To me, it truly doesn’t matter from a sense of like accomplishment. Like when I die be like, ‘Hey, Scotty won, you know, four majors in 20 tournaments and he won this much money.’ Like that that has zero effect on me. It’s more like from a competition side, it’s more just the things that I can try to achieve in the game.
You don’t always expect athletes to wear their hearts on their sleeve like that. Scheffler opened up to the media as if he was talking to his therapist, and it was honestly a very refreshing answer to a question that could have easily been satiated with a couple of emotionless words. You know… the typical pro athlete way of handling the media.
To put it a bit differently, it was a very much appreciated answer to hear from one of the best athletes in the world. And it just makes it that much crazier that he’s the No. 1 golfer in the world, and doesn’t seem to care much about that title.
During his answer, and elsewhere in his Open interview, Scheffler also revisited some points he’s made in the past: saying that he loves working hard at being the world’s best, and winning tournaments and the competition of it all. But at the end of the day, it’s not what satisfies him as a human being, and it’s obvious that he’s more focused on his eternal life than the worldly life he’s leading right now (and leading it quite well, might I add).
All in all, Scottie turned what would typically be a throw-away interview ahead of the Open Championship into an answer that could very well stay with some people.
Here’s his full time with the media, in case you wanted to see what other wisdom Scheffler shared:
