Everything to Know About PGA Star Scottie Scheffler: Family, Career & More
Get to know the world’s top golfer as he prepares to defend his Players Championship crown on NBC.
This week, the biggest names in golf are set to tee off on NBC, The Golf Channel, and Peacock for the 51st annual Players Championship in Florida — and for the past 100 weeks as the world's No. 1 golfer, no name’s been bigger in the sport than Scottie Sheffler's.
Owning 13 PGA Tour wins at the tender age of 28, Scheffler returns to the Players Championship already toting an unprecedented first in the event’s half-century history: He’s the only golfer ever to win the Players Championship in back-to-back years, and with a win in 2025, he could even make it a three-peat.
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Even though Scheffler’s on top of the golfing world, claiming this year’s $4.5 million first-place Players purse won’t be easy. With its staggering $25 million in overall payouts, the Players Championship (or TPC for short) features the “strongest field in golf,” inviting a litany of other present-day greats including Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, Sungjae Im, Shane Lowry, Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark, Will Zalatoris, Viktor Hovland, and Tony Finau.
Want to know more about the world’s top golfer? Keep scrolling as we take a closer look at Scottie Scheffler and his many career highlights — and even his growing family.
World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler's career highlights
Based in Dallas ever since his family moved to Texas from New Jersey while he was still a kid, Scottie Scheffler was already the nation’s top junior golfer before lighting up the college game at the University of Texas. He earned the 2015 Phil Michelson Freshman of the Year Award as a Longhorn (and a degree in finance along the way), turning pro soon after graduating and wasting no time landing a coveted spot on the 2020 PGA Tour.
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In only four short years, Scheffler’s PGA success has been nothing short of amazing. He claimed PGA Rookie of the Year honors in his debut season, setting up qualifying and invites to subsequent major tournaments. He quickly put those opportunities to good use, winning the Masters Tournament in both 2022 and again in 2024, while also winning the Players Championship in 2023 and 2024. His 2023 TPC victory cemented his name among the biggest legends in the sport, making Scheffler, Tiger Woods, and Jack Nicklaus the only players even to conquer both the Masters and TPC in the span of a single year.
Scottie Scheffler won The Players Championship in 2024
Scheffler went on a historic run in 2024, a year that saw him rack up a remarkable seven PGA Tour victories. After winning the Masters in April and the Travelers Championship in June, Scheffler led Team USA at the Paris Olympics in August, taking home the men’s individual gold medal. Combined with his seven first-place PGA events, Scheffler’s Olympics performance and his 2024 Players Championship victory helped him finish the year with an incredible nine top finishes overall.
Every year since 1982, The Players Championship has unfolded on the grounds of the Pete Dye-designed Stadium Course at Tournament Players Club Sawgrass (aka TPC Sawgrass). A bespoke, TV-friendly course noted for its notoriously challenging 17th hole par 3 with its famous island green, the course is located only a swing away from the Atlantic coast in the community of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
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Scheffler played through nagging neck pain to conquer TPC Sawgrass in 2024, closing distance in the tournament’s Sunday round to emerge victorious over a competitive final-day field that included Schauffele, Wyndham Clark, and Brian Harman. “It was pretty special to win back-to-back titles,” he reflected on his second consecutive TPC win in a recent blog post. “…That’s something you never really get the opportunity to do very often. It's tough enough to win one Players, and I was thankful to become the first player to repeat as champion in our flagship event.”
Scottie Scheffler’s wife and family
Scheffler met Meredith Scudder, his future wife, while each was still a teen attending the same Texas school (Highland Park High School in Dallas’ northern suburbs). They began dating during their senior year in 2014 — just in time to launch a long-distance relationship when he went off to college in Austin and she headed to Texas A&M University, 100 miles away in College Station.
The Schefflers became an official married couple in December of 2020, the same year Scottie earned PGA Tour Rookie of the Year honors. But as Meredith explained to Golf Digest, Scottie’s success on the course has never defined the terms of their relationship: “At the beginning of high school I always thought he had a super humble ambiance about him, that he was just a really down-to-Earth guy that doesn’t take himself too seriously,” she said. “Even when he had amazing accomplishments, that wasn’t the most important thing about him.”
By the time the Masters rolled around in 2024, the Schefflers’ family-first approach to married life was attracting nationwide attention. With Meredith pregnant and due to give birth to their first child any day, Scottie made it clear that he would leave Augusta National and forego his remaining rounds if his wife went into labor during the competition. Fortunately, the baby waited just long enough to give Scottie the runway he needed to notch his second Masters win, and the couple welcomed Bennett, their first child, into the family a few weeks later on May 8.
How can you watch the 2025 Players Championship?
Scottie Scheffler will defend his winning streak against this year’s cohort of golfing greats at the 2025 Players Championship from March 13 through 16. Each day’s action will be broadcast live on NBC and The Golf Channel, and will also stream on Peacock.
