PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland -- Hours before Scottie Scheffler sent his first Sunday tee shot into the air, tapped in for a kick-in birdie and began his 18-hole coronation, the player who last won The Open when it came to Portrush fired an iron 183 yards toward the fourth green and watched as his ball trickled in.
The crowd erupted; Shane Lowry threw his hands in the air. When he turned toward his caddie, cameras caught his remark.
"This game," he said, "will drive you mad."
To nearly every player in the field this week, that adage about golf rings true in a different way. For Lowry, who wears his heart on his sleeve, the volatility of the sport he has dedicated his life to is palpable in his expression following every shot. For someone like Rory McIlroy, as he showed on Masters Sunday at Augusta this year, the emotion is an inextricable part of his game.
Then there's Scheffler.
Whenever he is on the golf course, his emotions appear guarded, as if he has placed them inside an encrypted safe only he knows how to unlock. Xander Schauffele described it as "blackout" mode -- the way Scheffler's flow state is one where he is in his own world, unbothered by anything else but hitting the next shot and hitting it better than anyone else could.
Scheffler has, at times, given us glimpses of what seems to unlock his frustrations: a putt that breaks in a different direction than he thought; a wedge that doesn't go as far as he expected; a slope that doesn't make the ball react the way he thought it should. Rarely do those things throw him off his game.
"You won't see that much emotion as he continues to strike it like this," Jordan Spieth said. "The only time you're going to see it is when he's on the greens if he misses putts because he's not missing many shots."
On Sunday, Scheffler's final march on Royal Portrush was a masterclass, the latest display of his dominance on his way to his fourth major championship and the third leg of the career Grand Slam. It was further proof that Scheffler's approach to the game he continues to conquer is unlike anyone else's.
"I don't think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon," Schauffele said. "And here's Scottie taking that throne of dominance. He's a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us."
Throughout the day, Scheffler's path to victory looked stress-free to the naked eye. He prodded his way along for the first four holes, making three birdies and barely reacting as the crowd that was rooting for McIlroy couldn't help but feel defeated. On the fifth green, Scheffler calmly drained another birdie putt to go up by seven shots. All he got was a light smattering of claps. Then, when he left his approach shot on the par-3 sixth hole short of the green, the galleries cheered his misfortune.
Scheffler chipped up to the surface, stared down the 16-footer for par and made it. A vicious, Tiger-like fist pump ensued. It was the biggest display of emotion Scheffler had shown all week.
"Bloody hell," one fan said under his breath.
"This is over," another added.
It had been over for a while, perhaps as early as Friday when Scheffler shot 64. For some, that reality was just now settling in.
"The crowd, I think, wanted somebody else to win this week," Scheffler said. "And I kind of got to play spoiler a little bit, which was fun as well."
Unlike the Masters, where he is now a favorite of the patrons and the green jackets, here Scheffler is more like an unknown force from outer space. Fans have watched his greatness from afar, heard much about his inevitability. But on Sunday, as most rooted for a miracle from McIlroy, they got to witness the kind of hopelessness Scheffler's game can produce.
By the time he reached the 18th green and his margin of victory was four, the Northern Ireland crowd -- thousands strong -- had no choice but to give him a standing ovation.
"He's been on a different level all week," McIlroy said. "He's been on a different level for the last two years. He is the bar that we're all trying to get to."
The history Scheffler is creating with his shuffling golf swing and the comparisons to Tiger he shies away from are one thing, but what he has done to give the sport a Goliath that every one of his peers is trying to take down is perhaps even more impressive.
When Woods dominated, the gulf he created between him and everyone else was widened further by his athletic ability compared with the rest. Today, everyone on tour prioritizes fitness. Nearly everyone hits it far and high, and everybody uses the same modern equipment to their advantage. This homogeny isolates two things: consistency and mental approach. Over the past three years, no one has been more consistent, and no one has approached the pursuit of greatness quite like Scheffler. On Sunday, he once again explained his philosophy.
"This is amazing to win the Open Championship, but at the end of the day, having success in life, whether it be in golf, work, whatever it is, that's not what fulfills the deepest desires of your heart," Scheffler said. "Am I grateful for it? Do I enjoy it? Oh, my gosh, yes, this is a cool feeling. ... It's just tough to describe when you haven't lived it. It's something I actually talked to Shane about this week was just because you win a golf tournament or accomplish something, it doesn't make you happy."
When the final putt dropped on 18, Scheffler hugged his caddie, Ted Scott, and allowed himself a smile. Then Scheffler turned to his family rushing to meet him by the green, and he finally broke character. He took off his white Nike hat, raised both arms in the air and, as his face contorted in ecstasy, let out a yell.
Watch Scottie Scheffler's winning putt to claim his first Open Championship title.
Scheffler has told us time and time again that this -- the trophies, the praise, the comparisons to Tiger, the historic achievements -- do nothing to fulfill him. Being a father, a husband, does. Take him at his word or don't -- hints of what makes him the way he is were present all throughout that 18th green Sunday.
As his family awaited his return for the trophy ceremony, Scheffler's son, Bennett, played around in the grass with a plastic club. His mom, Diane, and wife, Meredith, took in the moment while his dad, Scott, pulled out his phone and recorded the scene -- the fans surrounding the green, the iconic yellow Open scoreboard that read "Scheffler -17."
Scott chatted up the marshals nearby, sharing childhood stories of Scottie, raving about how he bounced back from the double bogey on No. 8, acknowledging the company his son now keeps in golf history while preaching the same kind of message his son has espoused at every turn.
"He doesn't ever think about that, he never has. He's just like, 'At the moment, I'm good at what I do,'" Scott said. "I always told him the joy was in the journey. You never know what you'll find along the way."
As Spieth put it, "He doesn't care to be a superstar. He's not transcending the game like Tiger did. He just wants to get away from the game and separate the two. I think it's more so the difference in personality from any other superstar that you've seen in the modern era and maybe in any sport. I don't think anybody is like him."
In some ways, that's a convenient approach. But with Scheffler it doesn't take long to understand that it's real. Unlike Woods and many other players before him, Scheffler does not crave the spotlight; he tries his best to repel it. Yet his game can't help itself -- it continues to place him there.
"There's two Chipotles that I eat at [at] home," Scheffler said. "There's one right where I grew up, kind of near SMU's campus. If I was to go to that Chipotle and try to eat nowadays, it would be very difficult for me. There's another one in a different part of town that I'm not going to tell you where it is, but if I go there, nobody recognizes me ever."
As the sun went down on the summer night in Portrush, Scheffler returned to the 18th green as the most famous man in the arena for the trophy ceremony. Soon the words were coming out of R&A CEO Mark Darbon's mouth.
"The champion golfer of the year, Scottie Scheffler."
His family members looked at each other and smiled.
"I don't think I'm anything special just because some weeks I'm better at shooting a lower score than other guys are," Scheffler said. "In some circles, like right now I'm the best player in the world. This week I was the best player in the world. I'm sitting here with the trophy. We're going to start all over in Memphis, back to even par, show goes on."
Scheffler is right. The show will go on, but the evidence continues to pile up: The game everyone else can't always seem to bend to their will is the one he is breaking.