After many highs this season, Scottie Scheffler is making an altitude adjustment

No obstacles have been too big this year for Scottie Scheffler, the No.

But this week, he’s in the mountains of Colorado. The BMW Championship, the PGA Tour’s second FedEx Cup playoff event, will be played at a tour-record 8,130 yards at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colo.

Scheffler was asked Wednesday about acclimating to the altitude, and credited a family vacation in July in Telluride, Colo., which he said was “a little more” than Castle Rock. Telluride is 8,754 feet above sea level, while Castle Pines comes in at 6,332.

“… the elevation got me a little bit,” Scheffler said. “So, I’m very happy that I didn’t get over it because I’ve struggled from time to time.”

He was referring to his days on the Korn Ferry Tour, long before he dominated the PGA Tour, with tournaments in Colorado and “pretty extreme elevation” in Bogota, Colombia (almost 9,000 feet).

“… I remember sleeping very badly the first few nights,” Scheffler said. “You have weird dreams and you wake up in the middle of the night feeling like you can’t breathe and it’s just weird stuff.

“I feel that the experience of playing at a higher level has helped me adjust this week,” he said. “I was working out in the gym (on Tuesday) and I was definitely breathing faster than at home, but I think I did a good job of setting it up, and the number is that there is a system that has worked well for the last few years, and hopefully- going to be able to continue running this week.

The “number stuff” is tracking and analyzing the movement of the golf ball as it flies through a portable device such as TrackMan Golf. Scheffler said he and caddy Ted Scott don’t change the settings on their gear regardless of location.

“Teddy has a way that I’m not going to tell you because I think we do a good job of making sure we have a lot going on, no matter what the situation is,” Scheffler said. “It’s something that I depend on him a lot.”

Shots are expected to travel farther this week than at their more typical heights on tour. The Castle Rock course will have a 400-foot elevation change.

“So this week he did a lot of math,” Scheffler said of Scott. “We have the number and how far the ball is here, and we still have the number at home. So we have two ways to go, depending on the shot, just go where I know I can be comfortable. with the shot we try to press.

“So some of the ones I have stock numbers of what the club is here. So if the 8-iron becomes 165 in front, let’s say it will be like less 180s here, like that.”

Scheffler explains that variables can include time, or how long the ball is in the air. Uphill shots spend less time in the air, for example. Downhill shot will be affected by a higher percentage, he said.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into it, so it’s a pretty big adjustment for us,” Scheffler said.

Ludvig Aberg, who is making his BMW Championship debut, noted the difference between the players this week. The field of the top 50 players in the points standings tries to advance to next week, when the top 30 compete for the Tour Championship in lower Atlanta (about 1,000 feet maximum).

“It presents some challenges that golf courses at sea level don’t,” Aberg said Wednesday from Castle Pines. “The golf course is very, very good. But it’s quite a walk.”

Aberg told his caddy, Joe Skovron, that he didn’t think there would be much conversation on the way up the hill. He will focus on his breathing.

“Playing at elevation or at altitude is a little bit of a challenge, depending on the window you’re in, and that’s what I feel these first few days, we’re really trying to get a baseline on that,” Aberg said. “Then, of course, it will be affected if you let it go a little bit or go up in the air.

“But I try to keep it very similar. I don’t try to complicate it. Try to simplify and make it very similar to how I treat normal tournaments.”

–Field Level Media