PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – I owe Scottie Scheffler an apology.

"Scottie… I’m sorry mate."

For a while now I’ve had this feeling – and I took it public – that the world No. 1 lacks a little grit when it matters. I never disputed his world-class ability or ball-striking, but I felt he was turning into merely just a front-runner.

He was a winner, but a different kind of winner. One, lacking raw entertainment or pure excitement. His pure generational ball-striking paper cuts fields to death, rather than showing a killer mentality when challenged.

I brought recent evidence. Scheffler charged to the lead late Sunday at the WM Phoenix Open only to fade on the last few holes, and multiple times last season he pushed into the mix only to miss crucial putts when it mattered – leaving him to settle for one of his many (still impressive) top-10s.

It led me to fade Scheffler (successfully) many times mid-tournament over the last 12 months since his PLAYERS victory and gave me the confidence to voice my take in the public sphere.

And then last weekend Scheffler shoved that take up my… well, you get the picture.

After the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, I faded Scheffler once more.

“Does the world No.1 have a killer instinct where he takes hold of the tournament and stomps on the neck of others … he struggled in the head-to-head furnace battle … it’s his tournament to lose from here given how pure he strikes it but I worry he still might…”

Those were just some of the words I spewed onto the page last Friday and early Saturday I was having a nice little chest-out moment as Scheffler fell five shots behind the lead in the third round. "How right I was," I told those guys. I can make a great bold take.

A few hours later, Scheffler had surged back to the co-lead with a round to go and deep inside I knew I was in trouble. For all my talk, clawing back when it looked like he was free-falling, that’s what killers do.

It only took a few holes Sunday for Scheffler to twist the knife. He would cruise to a five-shot win. Kudos Scottie, kudos.

“I would like to be remembered as a competitor," Scheffler said post-round. "I would like to be remembered as someone that always gave it his best and just kept a good attitude. I feel like that's my goal always going into an event, is being tough, being competitive, and going out and competing, having a good attitude, and being committed to my shots.”

“This one's pretty special. Like some of y'all had mentioned, it had been a while since I won. I did win in the Bahamas, but as far as a PGA TOUR event, it had been almost a year, and so there had been a lot of chatter about my game and the state of where it was at, and so it was nice to kind of come in here with a good mental attitude and to perform well under pressure and I think today's round was really special for me going forward.”

And now we must go forward with Scheffler, who enters this week’s PLAYERS Championship as the defending champion and short-priced +550 betting favorite with BetMGM Sportsbook.

When it comes to picks this week from TPC Sawgrass, Pete Dye’s sometimes diabolical 7,275-yard epic, you would think we could pull data from the countless episodes since it first hosted in 1982. But we have to take a measured approach to looking at the data of winners in recent times.

While the PLAYERS was held in March from 1982 to 2006 it then shifted to May from 2007 through 2018, which presented a much different setup for the world’s best players. We returned to March in 2019 but lost the 2020 tournament to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2022’s tournament was heavily affected by poor weather that severely affected one side of the draw.

In other words – if you are taking stock in past data sets – the focus needs to be on the 2019 event won by Rory McIlroy, the 2021 week where Justin Thomas came out on top and last year’s Scheffler demolition job.

All three led the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green in their wins and they both ranked inside the top 10 in both SG: Off-the-Tee and SG: Approach with McIlroy second and sixth, Thomas 10th and fifth and Scheffler fifth and fourth.

McIlroy was fifth in Driving Distance, Thomas 18th, Scheffler fifth. McIlroy was third in Greens in Regulation, Thomas 17th, Scheffler led the field.

McIlroy played the Par 5s in 9-under during his win, Thomas a field-leading 14-under and Scheffler was 11-under on the longer holes.

There was a little bit of leeway allowed around, and on, the greens but all three champions still had to put forth decent efforts in this area. McIlroy was 29th in SG: Around-the-Green, Thomas was 11th and Scheffler an impressive third, while McIlroy ranked 47th in SG: Putting, Thomas was 42nd, and Scheffler 48th on the way to winning.

Boil all that down… and you need to hit the ball long enough, accurate enough, and just be reasonable enough on the greens.

Outrights

The +550 Scheffler number is not exciting, but we can’t discount the defending champion after last week proving what he can do when he does make his fair share of putts. I’d be holding until at least his afternoon tee time hoping for a little slide in his odds if someone puts up a low morning score. But the fact is Scheffler ranks first in SG: Tee-to-Green, second in SG: Approach, seventh in SG: Off-the-Tee, first in GIR, and first in Par-5 Scoring.

Scheffler is a great player but is he four times the player Justin Thomas (+2200) is? With odds like these on the third favorite, it seems time to pounce. Thomas ranks eighth on TOUR in SG: Tee-to-Green, he’s 16th in Par-5 Scoring, and he still hits the ball plenty long despite a drop off in recent years. He showed glimpses last week at Bay Hill before a late Sunday fade.

Another intriguing option for me is Will Zalatoris (+2500). For a long time at Bay Hill, it looked like 2022 Zalatoris before a late meltdown on Saturday derailed his chances. Still on the comeback trail from injury, his efforts at The Genesis Invitational (runner-up) and Arnold Palmer Invitational (T4) give me hope the ball-striker will be ready to rumble again. He sits seventh in SG: Tee-to-Green, eighth in SG: Approach, and 21st in Par-5 Scoring. But I like his stats from the last two Signature Events as a real barometer. Top 5 in SG: Tee-to-Green, top 10 in Approach, top 15 Off-the-Tee and top 30 in driving distance. He’s also been inside the top 22 in SG: Putting in both events.

Place markets

When I went through my key stats, one name surprised me. Tony Finau. He’s second in SG: Tee-to-Green, tied first in Par-5 Scoring, third in SG: Approach, 11th in GIR, fourth in driving distance. He also has three top-20s in his last four starts. The +180 for a Top 20 now catches my eye, or the +400 for a Top 10 if you want to be more aggressive. A year ago, Finau was T19 at TPC Sawgrass, his only recent result of note here.

Hideki Matsuyama (+275 for a Top 10) is also a ball striker to keep in mind all week. It wasn’t that long ago he opened with a 63 at TPC Sawgrass only to see the tournament wiped out due to COVID-19. Recently we’ve seen Matsuyama win at Riviera and finish T12 last week. He’s in form.

Wyndham Clark (+320 for a Top 10) is another player in form having won at Pebble Beach and contending at Bay Hill while Max Homa (+250 for a Top 10) is in form recently and in recent years at this venue. Homa strikes me as the type of player who could win a PLAYERS before breaking through in the majors.

Longshots

The bias in me is going to throw up the Australian duo of Jason Day (+5000) and Min Woo Lee (+5000) off the bat, but with good reason. Day is a former champion who knows how to get around TPC Sawgrass while Lee was the only player who truly challenged Scheffler last year before fading late Sunday.

Don’t sleep on Matt Fitzpatrick (+6600) here either. Plenty of people were on the former U.S. Open champion last week at Bay Hill only to see the Englishman miss the cut. All the good reasons to pick him a week ago still exist and perhaps not playing the weekend will have him refreshed. He was seen working things out on the range on Saturday and now is under the radar.

For resources to overcome a gambling problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER today.