‘Not going to rush back’: Scottie Scheffler unsure of status for Pebble Beach

Scottie Scheffler is still unsure if he’ll play next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am as he continues to recover from right-hand surgery.

Scheffler, who virtually joined the media day for the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Monday morning, said he has not decided if he’ll make his season debut at Pebble Beach, adding that while he’s “feeling good,” he expects to know in the “next few days to a week.”

The commitment deadline for Pebble is Friday evening.

“Just want to make sure I’m getting back to normal, progressing the right way in recovery,” Scheffler said. “I’m definitely anxious to get back, excited to get back, but I’m also not going to rush back just to rush back.”

The world No. 1, who won nine worldwide tournaments last year, sustained a puncture wound from broken glass while preparing Christmas dinner, and he required surgery to remove glass fragments from his hand. Scheffler said Monday that he was making homemade raviolis. Initially, Scheffler expected to be out three to four weeks before returning to 100%, per a statement released last month by his manager Blake Smith, though Scheffler wasn’t ready to return at last week’s American Express and had to withdraw to “give my injury more time to heal.”

Scheffler declined to answer a question about when he started hitting golf balls, though perhaps an explanation is that he’s yet to hit a full shot, according to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis, who added that Scheffler could begin doing so this week if cleared by his doctor.

Scheffler did say he took two weeks off from all golf activity post-surgery to make sure his wound healed properly, only working out his lower body.

“It was pretty unusual for me not to be able to do much in the gym,” Scheffler said. “I was still able to get in there and do some movement stuff and some of the stuff I usually do with my legs, but as far as upper body goes, I’m not going to go and just work out the left side of my body and come into the season walking like this (leaning to right side).”

A video surfaced this past weekend showing Scheffler working out and gripping a bar with his right hand, which was wrapped. That’s an improvement over not being able to brush his teeth.

“Sometimes you don’t realize how uncoordinated you are until you have to brush your teeth left-handed,” quipped Scheffler, who added that he didn’t even try to change a diaper one-handed.

Scheffler hasn’t competed since the Dec. 18 match with Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. His last tournament was the Hero World Challenge, which he won in early December. He’s had long competitive layoffs before, but usually he’s playing socially during those breaks. This past month, he’s been relegated to watching some of his tournaments from last season, a rare moment of reflection for Scheffler.

“I went back while I was sitting around kind of elevating my hand post-surgery, I was just sitting there, watched some old shots, watched some old tournaments, and I reflected a little bit,” Scheffler said. “Not much, but I just really wanted to jog my memory and since I wasn’t able to play golf, I tried to almost train a little bit at home to remind my brain what I was feeling over certain shots, what my hands felt like on the club, stuff like that, so I wasn’t totally checking out from golf.”