World number 1? Why Scottie Scheffler’s 2026 season is falling flat

By Jack Berube '26

The Official World Golf Ranking says Scottie Scheffler is the best player on the planet, but the leaderboards at TPC Sawgrass tell a whole different story. The golf world expected a return to the top at The Players Championship, but Scheffler spent his weekend fighting an ice cold putter and a lackluster performance everywhere else, eventually limping to a T22 finish. With the $4.5 million winner's check going to Cameron Young, the gap between Scheffler’s reputation and his 2026 reality has never looked wider.

At the start of the 2026 season, things couldn't have looked better for Scottie, as he won the first tournament of the year at the American Express by a respectable margin of 4 strokes. 

“Clearly, Scheffler is just picking up in 2026 where he left off a few months ago. If Sunday’s win is any indication, he is gearing up for yet another dominant, historic season that nobody in the golf world seems capable of slowing down,” wrote Ryan Young, a yahoo sports reporter about Scottie’s upcoming season after his start of the season win.

Next came the WM Phoenix Open, where Scheffler placed T3. Then the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (T4). And then The Genesis Invitational. While, the WM, and the Pebble Beach Pro-Am were very respectable finishes, the Genesis is where the struggle really started to pick up. 

The Genesis was the real first sign of the “ice-cold putter.” His ball striking remained elite, but his strokes gained putting suffered a major dip into the negatives.

With positive feedback from reporters and other analysts, outlooks still were looking good for Scottie, despite his disappointing Genesis Invitational performance. He still had 3 rounds in the top 5, one of which was a win at the American Express. 

This was until his recent Florida drought, where he desperately struggled to make the cut during the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay hill (a course he usually eats up), and the recent Players Championship tournament. In both tournaments, he made numerous, uncharacteristic bogeys, and even played rounds where he struggled to break 70. 

As the Tour heads toward Augusta, the question isn't whether Scottie Scheffler is still a great golfer. His bank account and world ranking say he is. The question is whether he can still be a dominant one. In 2025, he was the gold standard of a PGA Tour golfer; in 2026, he’s just another elite player fighting a bad putter and a slow-starting engine. If he doesn't find that lost rhythm soon, the green jacket might be heading home with someone else.

If you want to know how the golf world truly feels about a player, look at the sportsbooks. Following his four-stroke masterclass at the American Express in January, Scheffler was a gambler's favorite. His odds to win the 2026 Masters were at a huge +275. In a field of 90 elite professionals, that’s basically saying there was a 1-in-4 chance the The Masters tournament was already his. 

But after the mentioned Florida Draught, following his T22 finish at TPC Sawgrass, his odds shifted to +430. To a casual observer, that's just a small shift. But in the gambling world, that's a sign maybe not to bet on world number 1, Scottie Scheffler to take home the green jacket.

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