Imagine being the best in the world at your favorite game. Most people would just stop and take a long nap. But Scottie Scheffler is not like most people at all. He won 6 times in 2025 and has been holding the world number one spot for more than 130 straight weeks now, yet he still feels hungry for more.

“I think I have the understanding that I’m never going to get there[perfection]. This is a game that can’t be perfected. But I think that’s what always keeps you coming back. Because you can always get a little bit better, you can always get a little bit sharper,” Scheffler shared at the 2026 The American Express presser. “And there’s nothing better than hitting the ball exactly the way you want to. That’s one of the best feelings ever. I think as golfers we’re all kind of chasing that.”

Golf has always eaten perfection for breakfast. With 18 professional major championships, Jack Nicklaus once set a bar that many believed to be the absolute limit of human potential. Before Nicklaus fully ascended, Arnold Palmer defined the pinnacle of the sport. And if anyone searches for statistical perfection, the journey leads to 1945 and Byron Nelson.

In a year, Nelson won 18 tournaments and, more absurdly, he won 11 consecutive starts, a record that stands as one of the rarest feats in golf. Nelson’s scoring average of 68.33 in 1945 seemed like a typographical error in that era. Then came Tiger Woods. If Nelson, Nicklaus, and Palmer laid the groundwork, Woods built the skyscraper.

In 2000, Woods dismantled the concept of competitive balance. He won three majors (U.S. Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship) and nine times overall. And then, when Woods achieved these feats, and it was assumed that the ceiling had been reached, Scottie Scheffler arrived, a quarter-century later, who is looking at Woods’s records not as a ceiling, but as a target. 

That’s why last year, after winning the Open Championship at Royal Portrush, when asked about almost the same thing, Scheffler said something similar.

“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? It brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport…. But at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”

In the last few years, Scheffler has won 19 times on the Tour and won four major titles before turning thirty. He landed in the top ten in seventeen out of twenty events last year. Scottie won the PGA Championship, the Open Championship, and was the first player since Woods to defend his title at the Memorial Tournament.

He also didn’t just win the fourth consecutive Player of the Year award, but also won the Byron Nelson Award for scoring average for the third straight time. His scoring average of 68.1 led the whole Tour in scoring average for all four rounds individually, a feat we hadn’t seen since the prime years of Tiger Woods. But despite this, Scheffler thinks his game is imperfect and needs to improve in the upcoming season. He needs to win the U.S. Open to complete his Career Grand Slam and become the seventh golfer to do so.

This never-ending chase for a better game leads him back to the American Express 2026.

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The desert return: Why La Quinta matters for Scottie Scheffler

What better place to start chasing than La Quinta? Scottie Scheffler has played in this event six times but never won. His best performance came when he finished third back in 2020.  He missed the 2025 edition due to a kitchen injury, so this 2026 start feels like a small shot at unfinished business. Scheffler also expressed his desire to win the event.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m super goal-oriented. I always do my best to try to stay in the present, and I’ve been preparing to get ready for this event to start the season,” Scheffler said. “And I feel like my game’s in a good spot, and I’m definitely excited to get out there and start another season.”

He did not idle across the offseason. Scheffler returned in December at the inaugural Optum Golf Channel Games with his Ryder Cup Team to play against Rory McIlroy’s European Team and won the event at the defining Captain’s challenge moment.

Still, the AmEx field will not hand him an easy week. Defending champion Sepp Straka, Patrick Cantlay, Robert MacIntyre, and Sam Burns all provide legitimate threats. Several top-25 players entered, and course specialists like Cantlay know how to score on Dye layouts. 

Finally, remember the quote that started this story. Scheffler accepts the chase, and that acceptance frees him from the peer pressure. After this event, Scheffler will head to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am next week.