Scottie Scheffler is still the best player in the world, but heading into the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, a tournament where he set the PGA Tour scoring record just 12 months ago, the world No. 1 is carrying problems that Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee believes he cannot keep ignoring.

“He’s been missing an inordinate number of short putts this year,” Chamblee said. “There are something almost 60 players on tour who hadn’t missed a three-footer all year long. Some of them had made 450 out of 450. It’s rare when tour players miss a three-footer, but it certainly wasn’t rare for Scottie Scheffler at Aronimink, and it hasn’t been rare this year.” The conclusion was direct: “He can’t afford those misses given that he’s slightly off his game this year in terms of ball striking.”

The numbers from last week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink support that. The golfer ranked seventh off the tee, fifth in approach play, and fourth in tee-to-green strokes gained, yet he finished T14 at two-under par. He ranked 72nd in strokes gained putting for the week, losing strokes on the greens in three of the four rounds, including a 2.2-stroke loss on Saturday, his worst single-round putting performance in nearly a year.

This has been building for months. Scheffler’s 2026 results tell the story: a win at The AmEx in January, then a T24 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, T22 at the PLAYERS, and T14 at the PGA Championship. Strong ball striking across all four events, but the putter consistently cost him.

Chamblee raised concerns even earlier, back in March at TPC Sawgrass, where Scheffler hit just half his fairways in the opening rounds and nearly missed the cut. Chamblee criticized his driver swing on Golf Channel’s Live From: “I don’t even recognize this golf swing from Scottie Scheffler. It’s a foot and a half shorter than it was last year and the face is wide open.” Scheffler recovered to shoot 5-under in round three, but the fact that both his driver and putter drew scrutiny in the same season points to a player managing multiple issues at once.

On the greens, specifically, the 29-year-old has not disputed the struggles but frames them as circumstantial. After Saturday’s round at Aronimink, where he missed a 5-footer at the first and a 10-footer at the fifth, he said, “I hit a lot of good putts that are kind of right around the edge. It’s kind of like a little bit of a dice roll at times when you have so much slope and so much wind.” He lost strokes putting again on Sunday.

That context makes his upcoming week at TPC Craig Ranch worth watching closely. At the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last year, Scheffler won by eight strokes with a 72-hole score of 253, tying the lowest score in PGA Tour history for any non-Sentry event, shooting 61-63-66-63 wire to wire. Chamblee acknowledged that the version of Scheffler could absorb missed short putts because his overall game covered for them. At his current level, it cannot. As Chamblee put it: “When he’s at his best, he can afford those misses. But he’s not at his best this year.”

However, off the course, a different picture is emerging altogether.

Scottie Scheffler’s quiet balancing act before title defense

Scheffler added a second child, Remy, in late March, and the demands at home have genuinely changed how he structures his days on Tour. Less time on the range, earlier departures, tighter schedules. He is not complaining about any of it, just adjusting.

“Being tired means you had a nice, full day,” Scheffler said. His top-25 streak now sits at 31 consecutive events, dating back to 2024. The fatigue is real, but it clearly has not touched his scoring. That consistency speaks for itself.

The Byron Nelson carries personal weight beyond just a title defense. Scheffler grew up in Dallas, attended this tournament as a kid, and made his first PGA Tour start here at 17 as an amateur. Byron Nelson, the man, matters to him too, not just the event bearing his name.

With the PGA Tour restructuring potentially affecting where the Nelson lands in any future tiered system, Scheffler was straightforward: those decisions are out of his hands. What he does know is that he wants the tournament protected. “I have nothing but great things to say about this event,” he said.