Defending a Players Championship: Scottie Scheffler said it's all about the Stadium Course

No one has won The Players Championship twice in a row over the balance of a tournament history that reaches 50 years March 14-17 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

Scottie Scheffler is the next to give it a go.

Scheffler, the world's No. 1-ranked player who won the 2023 Players by five shots, was at the TPC Sawgrass on Monday to help provide content for the PGA Tour's web site and social media and to meet with Players sponsors before he headed for the Arnold Palmer Invitational at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando.

He will make his first start since tying for 10th at the Genesis Invitational on Feb. 18.

Scheffler is riding a streak of steady performances that began last season with 17 top-10 finishes in 25 starts, with victories at The Players and the WM Phoenix Open. While he hasn't won since The Players, that victory began a streak of 19 starts to date in which Scheffler hasn't missed a cut and has 13 top-five finishes and 16 top-10s.

He's made 30 cuts in a row, second to Xander Schauffele (40) for the longest active streak on Tour.

Scottie Scheffler says Pete Dye design makes it difficult

With that kind of consistency, Scheffler should have short odds to repeat at the Stadium Course. But he said Pete Dye's ingenious design, which requires every shot in the bag, might be the biggest reason for the lack of a repeat winner in The Players.

With the deepest field in golf attacking a track where all of them feel they have a chance; it makes it even tougher to go back-to-back.

"I think it has a lot to do with the golf course," he said. "I think it's a challenging golf course and you also haven't seen that many multi-winners at this place because it doesn't really suit any one style of play. It's a good test of golf."

Tiger Woods, Davis Love III, Fred Couples, Steve Elkington and Hal Sutton are the only players to win twice at the Stadium Course. Woods, Love and Couples are in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

The closest a defending champion has come to winning The Players was Mark McCumber in 1989 when he finished four shots behind winner Tom Kite.

Scottie Scheffler built momentum with an improbable chip-in

Scheffler shot a 69 in the final round last year, sparked by a stretch of five birdies in a row that began with a chip-in at the par-3 eighth hole. He then built a six-shot lead with birdies at Nos. 9, 10, 11 and 12, then rallied from a bogey at No. 14 to par out — capped by a 20-foot putt at the last.

"I was certainly hoping it would be the start of something," he said of his chip-in at the eighth, from 34 feet away with the ball buried in deep rough. "I always try to take that good momentum to the next hole. That [No. 9] starts the scoring portion of the course. You steal a birdie at 8 and you've got 9, 11, 12 all good birdie opportunities. I snuck another one in there at 10 [on an 18-foot putt] ... it definitely was good momentum for the rest of the round."

Scheffler said he never thought he had it wrapped up until he landed his tee shot at the 17th hole's Island green 9 feet from the hole.

"I was trying to stay aggressive, keep making good swings to good targets," he said. "I felt a sense of relief when I hit the green at 17. That hole is always in the back of your head when you're coming down the stretch in this tournament."

Scottie Scheffler likes the state of his game

Scheffler came into the 2023 Players off eight consecutive finishes inside the top 15, including his second victory in a row at the TPC Scottsdale.

He said he's got similar vibes entering Bay Hill this week and The Players next week, with the Masters looming on the horizon April 11-14 (Scheffler won at Augusta in 2022) and the PGA Championship May 16-19 at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. (Scheffler tied for second at Oak Hill last year and has finished among the top-10 in three of his last four PGA starts).

"I'm playing some solid golf ... excited about the things I'm working on," he said. "It was nice to have that offseason at the end of the year [when the Tour changed to a calendar year schedule]. I was pretty tired at the end of the year, and it was nice having a bit of a break, feeling refreshed and ready to head into the season. Now, we're kind of heading into the real thing."

Scheffler said the 2024 PGA Tour season so far has illustrated the Tour's depth, with four first-time winners — the last two coming in the last two weeks with Austin Eckroat at the Cognizant Classic and Jake Knapp at the Mexico Open.

"We're aware of how good everybody is," he said. "There's so much talent ... it's a fun time to be playing the [PGA] Tour and we've got a lot of good competition this year."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Scottie Scheffler said course makes it tough to defend a Players title