Scottie Scheffler wants World No.1 spot back: "I don't like finishing second"

Although Rory McIlroy will end the year as World No.1, Scottie Scheffler will regain the top spot with a win at the Hero World Challenge.

Matt Chivers

03 Dec 2022

Scottie Scheffler wants World No.1 spot back: "I don't like finishing second" — Scottie Scheffler wants World No.1 spot back: "I don't like finishing…

Scottie Scheffler's time at the top of the Official World Golf Rankings seemed to fly by. His rise on the PGA Tour came in a flash and he has now established himself as one of the best in the business.

Between his win at the WGC Match Play in March and being dethroned by Rory McIlroy in October at the CJ Cup, the Texan spent 29 weeks at World No.1, a total that surpasses Jordan Spieth, Lee Westwood and Fred Couples.

The 26-year-old can return to the summit with a win at the Hero World Challenge, but according to OWGR guru Nosferatu on Twitter, McIlroy is still projected to end the year as World No.1.

On another blustery day in the Bahamas, Scheffler carded an impressive 4-under 68 with six birdies and two bogeys. He is one shot behind defending champion Viktor Hovland.

In 2021, Hovland cut down a five-shot lead held by Collin Morikawa in the final round at Albany and he'll look to prevent another American from winning again this weekend.

Stars in sync pic.twitter.com/HekATscCV7
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 2, 2022

"No. 1 is obviously a place I'd like to get back to, but if we're not playing golf for a while, who knows what the World Rankings are going to do," Scheffler said.

"Right now it seems to be a bit of a flawed system, so we'll see what happens there. It's definitely something nice to go back to, but I'm not going to be thinking about it when I'm on the golf course.

"I don't like being No. 2, I don't like finishing second."

Much like the comments made by Tiger Woods and Jon Rahm before him, Scheffler believes the OWGR points system is flawed. The term 'flawed' has been used twice now when discussing the distribution of points at different events.

Earlier this week, Woods used this term and pointed out that the RSM Classic dished out more OWGR points than the DP World Tour Championship, the finale of the DP World Tour which saw a much stronger, albeit smaller, field.

At that very event at Jumeirah Golf Estates, Rahm described the current system as "a bit of a joke." He used his recent form of coming second, first, fourth and first in his last four events and his ranking didn't budge.

The board of the OWGR is under more scrutiny than ever as they have also been tasked with reviewing the alliance formed between the LIV Golf Series and the MENA Tour. Scheffler has now applied more pressure.

"I understand that they got away from the minimums for every tour, which I think made a lot of sense. I think now I would say the top players are not bringing as much weight to events as they should," he added.

"I think there was some stuff like the winner of the Fortinet got more points than the winner of the Tour Championship, stuff like that's a little bit weird. I don't know if that's actually 100 per cent correct, that's the rumour going around on the driving range.

"But it's also really tough to rank golfers when they're not playing the same schedule. So I think as we all start to play together more often and you get the best players playing together more often, it's going to be much easier to rank those guys.

"It depends on how much value you place on a guy No. 1 in the world versus No. 50 in the world. It's a tough system, it's not something that's easy to get right. In other sports, you have a record and golf is not necessarily a record.

"It's a challenging system. I think they kind of went from one extreme to the other and we'll meet in the middle hopefully and find something that's a little bit better."