Scottie Scheffler's offseason focus on strength leads to historic run

Scottie Scheffler is in the midst of one of the best runs seen in the history of the PGA Tour. If golf were another sport like basketball or football, what Scheffler has done would be akin to a dynasty, and it doesn't seem like he's slowing down any time soon.

On Monday, Scheffler was named the winner of the 2025 Jack Nicklaus Award, given to the PGA Tour's Player of the Year. It's the fourth straight time he has won the award, which ties Tiger Woods for the most consecutive times winning the Jack Nicklaus Award.

And in his record-setting season, Scheffler didn't pick up his first win until May. Then he never stopped.

Scheffler added his hometown CJ Cup Byron Nelson in record fashion before winning the PGA Championship for his third major title. Then he won the Memorial Tournament for the second straight year before adding a Claret Jug to his trophy case after winning the Open Championship. All in all, he totaled six victories and only increased his grip on the top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings.

And for him, it all came on the heels of injuring his hands late last year when he cut it open while making ravioli around Christmas time.

"I made some really nice progress in the offseason, and it was — this year was really just about kind of getting back to almost where I was just because throughout the year I can't really do the same things that I would normally do at home in an offseason," Scheffler said. "So a lot of that was just continuing to do my recovery stuff.

"And I say build up strength. It wasn't really a ton of strength. It's not like I'm trying to gain a bunch of speed or doing anything. I'm just trying to get my body in a position where I can feel healthy for most of the year and not have to deal with little aches and pains and stuff like that."

Scheffler's preparation is one of the reasons he has taken over the golf world. From his mental focus to his tournament prep, hardly any player goes into a week more ready to play than Scheffler, and it shows over and over and over.

And on the physical side, that strength can be the difference between a par and bogey on golf's biggest stages.

"Strength can be something that can be very helpful in especially major championships and stuff like that, hitting out of heavy rough, that kind of stuff," he said.

Scheffler said there's a definite balance between prepping his body for the marathon season while also making sure his game is sharp and ready to go every week. He has prioritized time to rest his body while making sure he's training hard enough to continue his recent play. Scheffler works with performance coach Troy Van Biezen, who is the director of performance for the company GolfForever.

"Most of that is just getting my strength back to a position where it was in 2024 and then making sure my body feels good for me to be able to perform throughout the course of the season and not have to kind of battle in certain events maybe if my body's not feeling 100 percent," he said. "So using this time throughout the offseason where I'm not playing as much golf to flush out some inflammation and get some good recovery here at home just so I'm prepared to go out and play another long season."

Scheffler then referenced how he was chasing getting his body to how it felt in the 2024 season and that it never quite felt that way in 2025. Hard to believe coming from the guy who won two majors and is now a U.S. Open away from the career Grand Slam.

He was asked to compare which of his past four seasons would be considered the best. He didn't give an answer, but he did remark on what he was most proud of.

"I think overall the thing that I'm most proud of when I look at the last couple years is just consistency. It's not very easy to just show up and finish in the top-10 each week," Scheffler said. "I think that's something that's very difficult to do and something I'm very proud of, bringing the intensity that I need to in these tournaments and being prepared as I need to in order to perform well week in and week out. I think that's something that's very difficult, something I'm very proud of is giving myself so many opportunities to win tournaments and then being able to capitalize on them as well."