Scottie Scheffler reflects on astonishing 392 days after Players Championship triumph - exalted company, hard times, 88y/o grandma walking course

He was asked to describe it in one word and came up with “fun”, which it has certainly been, but what Scottie Scheffler has achieved in the space of 392 days deserved something better than that.

Astonishing, exhilarating or even extraordinary because, let’s face it, just over a year ago he’d never won on the PGA Tour, yet now he’s got six titles under his belt and most of them are big ones.

The 26-year-old just added The Players Championship to his haul and, in doing so, joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only golfers to have held that title and be Masters champion at the same time. “Any time you can get mentioned in the same breath as Tiger and Jack, it’s very special. I am very grateful for that, “ admitted Scheffler as he celebrated a highly-impressive five-shot success at TPC Sawgrass on Sunday night.

The Texan’s other wins in the past 13 months have included the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and a double success in the WM Phoenix Open. In every one of those events, he’s come out on top in strong fields and looked very comfortable in doing so. “I think I get excited for a good hard test,” said Scheffler, who is back to world No 1 after leapfrogging Jon Rahm following his latest last-day masterclass, which included a burst of five straight birdies around the turn. “I feel like I can find a way to make pars and hang in there. This week I think I had five bogeys for the whole week. Around this place, that's really, really I would say hard to do and that's probably what I'm most proud of is just playing so solid. Yeah, I think I just like the challenge of kind of harder golf courses.”

A rare disappointment for Scheffler over the past year was not winning the FedEx Cup as that prize went instead to Rory McIlroy after the Northern Irishman rallied from six shots back to win the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta last August. “I would say that East Lake at the end of last year was pretty challenging for me just to handle,” admitted Scheffler. “It was obviously very sad and hard and I didn't expect things to finish that way. But I feel like a lot of that stuff is just what you go being a professional golfer. It's a really hard sport. And I had put myself in a position all year to where I had a chance to win the FedExCup, and I wasn't able to get it done. And, by the time I got home, I was worn out. I was mentally, physically drained, emotionally drained. Meredith (his wife) and I, I think, both were. So we were pretty sad after that, but the hard times make the good times that much sweeter.”

This particularly good week – he picked up a cheque for $4.5 million – was watched by his 88-year-old grandmother Mary, who walked round with his group on all four days. “She's a trooper,” added Scheffler. “She's had a rough last year with grandpa passing away, and we have an uncle that's pretty sick, and I'm just happy that we're able to enjoy all this together.”