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Scottie Scheffler is not like other golfers, and that goes right down to his use of golf balls. Most golfers use anything numbered one through four, but Scheffler was seen using balls with the numbers seven and eight during the RBC Heritage, and it caught the eye of the broadcast booth.
Justin Thomas joined them and noticed it as well. Scheffler is once again leading the competition at an event, and Thomas felt it was strange that the world number one used such high numbers before admitting that he might just be doing it wrong.
Thomas remarked on Scheffler's unique approach:
"Does anyone else think it's weird that Scottie uses high numbers? I don't know if I've ever seen an elite player use such a high number of balls," Thomas said during the broadcast.
"It's wild. I've been going about this wrong my whole life... Anything but fours [I like]. I won't use fours. I don't know, golfers, we're just ridiculously supersticious. I think I had a couple bad holes or rounds and that was all she wrote."
Scheffler is on an almost unprecedented run. He's currently leading the Heritage, which would potentially make for four wins in five starts. That's impressive in its own right, but it doesn't quite do it justice.
He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which is a Signature Event boasting one of the best fields in golf. To follow it up, he won the Players Championship, another event that's been called the fifth major in golf. He also is now the only back-to-back champion there.
Then he placed T2 after barely missing a putt to tie it on 18 at the Houston Open. To cap off the run, he won the Masters by four strokes and one weekend later is chasing another PGA Tour victory. Perhaps Thomas was right, everyone may need to emulate Scheffler and start using high-numbered balls when playing. Clearly, it's working wonders for Scheffler.
Justin Thomas reflects on poor Masters outing
His first outing without legendary caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay did not go so well. Justin Thomas ended up missing the cut after shooting seven over par through two rounds. Whether or not it had anything to do with the caddie is impossible to tell, but it wasn't good.
Via Golf Magic, Thomas reflected:
“Probably just didn't handle the moment I was in as well as I should have but I knew that I was playing well. I'm very, very hard on myself. And it doesn't help me too often. And just trying to realize that it's in the past and I was playing really good golf, and I just needed to get over it.”
Justin Thomas admitted that he's taken to journaling to help and tries to relax off the course by hanging out and having fun with friends. After an abysmal 2023 season, Thomas seems to be looking for ways to get back to form, but it's been a mixed bag thus far in 2024.
