Scottie Scheffler Talks New Tech, Tiger Woods & What’s Next for 2026

Scottie Scheffler met with the media ahead of the Hero World Challenge and shared rare insights into his offseason, equipment changes, and mindset entering 2026.

Scheffler discussed how ready he feels after a long break, admitting that only competition can truly show where his game stands. He explained why this event is “a valuable week” to test his new TaylorMade driver, how the club “fits his eye,” and why this year’s testing process was “much simpler.”

The World No. 1 also reflected on his remarkable consistency, being compared to Tiger Woods, and what he admired most about Tiger’s dominance. Scheffler spoke about his 2025 season—multiple majors, patience during a slow start, and the pride he takes in his discipline and steady play.

He addressed Tour schedule changes, his impressions after meeting Brian and Tiger, and why he’ll always “play where the best players are playing.”

Finally, Scheffler shared lighter moments, including avoiding wine glasses on Thanksgiving and celebrating with the Claret Jug and Wanamaker Trophy at home.

Full press conference breakdown inside.

success here. But I am curious. How close do you feel like you are to game ready when you show up at this event? You’ve had some weeks off. Yeah. Um, you know, that’s an interesting question. I think a lot of times you have to see and feel how things are in competition and, um, I took a pretty good break after the RDER Cup and, you know, my season’s going to start a little later than I normally would with Maui being um, Maui being canceled. So, you know, I feel pretty good. When you look back at last off season, obviously sort of got derailed a little bit by the injury. How much are you embracing this off seasonason as something to get back into the routine and do the things that you want to do? Yeah, it’s nice. I feel like I’m on a similar routine to how I was la going into last offseason and um yeah, I’m don’t anticipate any interruptions this time around, but you know, surprises happen, but I’m remaining hopeful that nothing nothing will go down, but um yeah, it’s good good to be back on routine. Do you stay away from wine glasses at Thanksgiving? Yeah, I don’t cook. I don’t I don’t touch glass. Uh, I know last year you obviously kind of debuted the claw, at least in competition here. I know this week you have a new driver in play. Does this week kind of work as one of those weeks where you can kind of test things out? I would say that’s that’s a lot of what’s really valuable for me about this week. And like I said, testing things out and competition is is a good way of kind of seeing where you’re at. Um, you can simulate competition at home, but uh, coming out here and playing stroke play is is always a bit different over the course of four days. And um I I find this week to be pretty valuable. Just a bit granular on that driver. I think similar face to what you’ve had previous years. What do you like about that kind of carrying stuff over but also then new, you know, new tech in there? Yeah, I mean for for me so far this driver has been it’s been a really good fit for my eye and that’s always a first test for me and so far the performance has been good. My spin numbers been really consistent, ball flight’s been consistent and um you I’m looking forward to getting in competition. When did you first swing it? How was the process of the of Tailor Made kind of introducing you to it? Yeah, this so last year I had a little bit of trouble getting into the Qi35 and I felt like we learned a lot throughout that process of what I like to see in a driver, the way it needs to perform for for me specifically. And um going into this year, I felt like Adrian and the whole team at Tail had a really good kind of idea of what my eyes needed to see in order for the driver to be able to work. And so, um, we went through a lot of different kind of options for what the face needed to be specifically for me and and felt like we’re in a good spot. And then the testing was was a lot simpler this time around, for sure. Your your track record here is pretty unbelievable. What What is it that you love about this course? Why is it why do you I don’t think you’ve ever shot up a par. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. It’s I I I think it’s a good golf course. I mean, you got to keep the ball in play. It is funny, you know, coming in, this will be the first first event typically from a long break. And so, you don’t really ever know how things are going to go. And, um, yeah, I’ve had some success here, I think, a couple seconds and a couple first. And so, it’s a golf course that I like. It’s a great place to be able to practice and kind of get back onto schedule with, you know, my trainer and Teddy and guys that I don’t really see throughout the offseason. And so, um, I I find this week to be pretty valuable as I look towards starting next season. Hey, Scotty. Uh I wanted to ask you I I don’t know if you have checked the stats page of PGA Tour and do you know how many stats category you are leading in at the end of the year? I didn’t check any of that but uh I mean you you must be having a pretty good idea with your team as to what you did this year. Which is one stat in particular that really pleased you the most about the season if you have to. Gosh, I don’t know. I don’t know what that one stat would be. I think it’s hard to kind of boil down. I felt like I made some good improvements last year. I felt like um I did some really good things. I got off to a bit of a slower start and then I I I got rolling there towards the towards the middle of the year and was able to win some nice tournaments. And so, you know, I think I was pretty consistent throughout the year and so I think that’s something that I would be really proud of is just having consistent finishes finishes week in week out and then having some wins as well. Where did you make the most improvement? Oh, sorry. Talking of consistency, I mean we were asking Tiger, it’s almost people are saying it’s tiger-l like consistency that you’re showing for the past two years. Uh can you can you when Tiger was in on that kind of a role 20201 what was the thing that you really liked most about Tiger’s game? I mean I was I was pretty young back then. I uh I got to catch up on all that stuff from from you know YouTube and stuff like that. But um I would say Tiger when he was in the field I think he was a guy that was always give himself a chance to win and there was very few spurts throughout his career where he wasn’t you know wasn’t the best player in the world and um I would say that’s one thing I admired about him is he always had an ability to hit many different types of shots and was always working extremely hard on his game. He never he was never complacent or satisfied with where he was at you know with his game and um kind of always kept working and you know I’ve admired that about him. What letter grade would you give your season 2025 if you were going to give it one? No idea. Scott, we talked to a couple players and they said they were impressed by the meeting with Brian and Tiger yesterday. What were your impressions? Yeah, I’ve I’ve uh I met Brian towards the end of the season. Seems like a good guy. He’s got a lot of ideas. You know, he seems very smart, knowledgeable. He’s working really hard. And so I’ve been I’ve been very pleased with the with the conversations that I’ve had with them, the things that I’ve been hearing. I think uh I think they’re looking at things the right way and I’m excited about some of the changes that they’re looking to make and um I mean obviously right now nothing’s nothing set and I think right now they just have kind of some loose ideas of things that they’re looking at and um you know he brings kind of some fresh ideas to the table for sure. When you look at what they talked about last night at that meeting, what would the perfect tour schedule look like to you? Is there anything that stands out? Uh, I mean, no. I I don’t know what a perfect schedule looks like for me. Um, I like being able to have a little bit of freedom in the way I play uh tournaments. You know, that’s something that I think is an advantage to our tour and I definitely enjoy that part of it. But at the end of the day, you know, I’m going to play where the best players are playing and um I kind of I love competition. I love playing against the best players and so wherever those guys are playing, that’s probably where you’re going to see me. you anticipate because you’re not playing Sentry adding anything early in the season? Probably not. When you look back, say 10 years from now, what do you think is going to be your fondest memory of this year? My fondest memory of this year, I mean, I think any any season in which you’re able to win major championships, I think is is very special, especially be able to win multiple majors. Um, I think especially I mean the PJ and the open championship. I mean the open championship is the Clare Jug is a pretty cool trophy to have in your possession. I don’t think I underestimated what that what that feels like and I’ve really enjoyed kind of having that at home um and being able to celebrate with that. But I think a lot of times the consistency that I played with this year I’m extremely proud of. I think for me to be able to put in as many top finishes as I did takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of energy and focus in order to be able to do that. And so I was proud of the the discipline that I had throughout the season and and not only not only that discipline, but also staying patient in the beginning of the year when things weren’t going as as I hoped they would. I was still able to kind of grind out some some decent finishes and keep myself in it and then I started trending trending and um you know found myself in a really good spot in the middle of the year. What have your friends said when they see the two trophies? Um you know, nothing really. I mean, we we we celebrated after the PGA championship and after the Open Championship. I’m trying to actually remember. I don’t think we we didn’t really have a big celebration for the PGA Championship just because we were kind of in the middle of the season, but after the Open Championship, we were able to come home and have uh kind of some end of the year stuff. And so it was really fun bringing both the trophies to we had like a little dinner with some of our friends and you know drank out of the cleric jug and the water maker and um just did some fun stuff and it was uh it was it was a good time. Does that Does that answer you look