Jack Nicklaus on defending Memorial champ Scottie Scheffler: 'He plays a lot like I did'

DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — Scottie Scheffler already received a handshake and a trophy from Jack Nicklaus for winning the Memorial last year. Now comes some of the highest praise of all from the tournament host. "He plays a lot like I did," Nicklaus said. Nicklaus, whose 18 professional major championships remain the gold standard in golf, said he never went to a tournament thinking it was his to win. Golf required preparation. It was a process of hitting fairways and greens, always improving. "I have always tried to feel like I was climbing a mountain," Nicklaus said. Scheffler has shown a lot of that in his three years on top of golf's mountain. He speaks endlessly about being prepared when he stepped onto the first tee, having a plan for every hole and limiting mistakes. It has carried him to 18 titles worldwide, including the PGA Championship two weeks ago for his third major. Scheffler leads the PGA Tour in the statistic that measures tee to green, as he has each of the last two years. "He hits it left to right, keeps the ball in play, is long when he wants to be long, hits a lot of greens," Nicklaus said, an assessment of Scheffler that was every bit the way the Golden Bear was in his prime. "What I like is he does it with ease," Nicklaus said. "He never looks like he's frustrated about doing anything. He's very calm about it. It reminds me of the way I played. I tried to be very calm about, never got flustered." The 50th edition of the Memorial starts Thursday with Scheffler trying to join Tiger Woods as the only repeat winners at Muirfield Village. The field for this $20 million signature is stacked, as usual, but is missing Masters champion Rory McIlroy, who chose not to play for the first time since 2017. Looming in two weeks is the U.S. Open at Oakmont, reputed to be among the toughest tests in the land. Scheffler made his U.S. Open debut at Oakmont as an amateur in 2016, opened with a 69 and then missed the cut. But that's too far down the road. He's a shot-by-shot, hole-by-hole, week-by-week thinker. He doesn't look back, either, even if he is the defending champion. "I am focused only on one shot at a time, but you're always positioning yourself on a hole," Scheffler said. "I would say it's basically playing one hole at a time. When I step up on the first tee tomorrow, I'm going to remind myself that I'm prepared, I'm ready to play in the tournament. Now it's all about going out and competing." Muirfield Village is lush as ever, with rain over the last two weeks and a little bit more over the last two days certain to make it long and soft. The winning score under par has been in single digits each of the last two years — Scheffler finished at 8-under 280 to win by one in 2024, Viktor Hovland was 7-under 281 and won in a playoff the year before. "It is always hard. It does feel like that," Max Homa said. "It will be interesting to see the scores the next couple days to measure it because the last few years I've been here, I feel like it's just been incredibly firm, and that's been the test. With such difficult greens, it's been impossible to leave the ball in a good spot at times. "But this year, the rough feels like a U.S. Open a bit more," he said. "I had a couple lies today that you are just trying to get it 70 yards down the fairway." Scheffler's preparation includes getting some rest. He is in the midst of one of his busier stretches this year. He won in Dallas by eight shots, had one week at home, then won the PGA Championship by five shots and tied for fourth at Colonial the next week. This is his third straight week, and then he has the U.S. Open. "Rested enough," Scheffler said. Nicklaus started this tournament in 1976 — he was 36 and would go on to win four more majors before scaling back — and stays active reworking the course, constantly talking to players about what they like and what can get better. "He wants this golf course to be the best test of golf, and so the last couple years he's just been sitting in player dining basically asking guys what they think of the course," Scheffler said. "I think for a man that has the experience he has in the game of golf, for all the stuff he has accomplished, for him to be sitting in dining asking the current guys how he can improve his tournament I think is really cool." Nicklaus was all about the big tests. He is known as one of the greatest clutch putters of all time, but the Golden Bear never enjoyed tournaments that were decided on putting. Much like Ben Hogan before him, he thought the test should start from the tee box. "Making putts is all part of the game," Nicklaus said. "And as long as it's not a putting contest, that's what I don't like. I was very much about fairways and greens. If you asked Scheffler, I'm sure he's all about fairways and greens. And I've never talked to him about it." Nicklaus has seen plenty of Scheffler, mainly last year when he won the Memorial.