CROMWELL, Conn. — Scottie Scheffler has made excellence so matter-of-fact, it’s easy to forget he is the best golfer in the world, and has been for years.

It’s easy to wonder what’s wrong when he goes a few months without hoisting a trophy, even though he has been in contention week after week.

It’s easy to forget, too, that we are watching an historic figure in sports every time he passes our way. Golf royalty.

Then Scheffler has a day like he had Friday at the TPC River Highlands, narrowly missing the magic 50s and more or less shrugging it off, no big deal. He’s been the No. 1 golfer in the world for 190 weeks, since May 2023, and he’s earned more than $112 million on tour, but he’s still looks the part of the cool young dad, bringing his 2-year-old son Bennett out to the driving range here with his curly hair and tiny golf bag full of miniature toy clubs. Scottie looked just as happy out there as he could have looked if he made that putt on 18 and broke 60.

“It was kind of funny,” Scheffler said Friday, when he finished his second-round 60 to take a 2-stroke lead. “It was like, ‘Yeah, it would be cool to shoot 59,’ but somebody has already shot 58 here, so it’s not even the course record. You know, Jim kind of takes away a little bit of the special of 59.”

Furyk’s 58 came 10 years ago on this course, and he was on hand, as part of the TV team. Scheffler had a 26 1/2-foot putt for birdie on the 18th green, and came up about eight feet short. Earlier, on the fourth hole, he read a big break nearly perfectly, but left his 27-foot putt an inch short. Later on the front nine, he had a putt rim in and out of the cup.

That’s how close Scheffler was to doing something not even he had ever done before, 58. … Fifty-seven? Put the top-ranked player on the planet on this piece of the planet, with near ideal conditions, little breeze and soft greens, and the impossible becomes possible. As it is, he is 16-under, the lowest 36-hole score ever in this tournament.

He shot a 59 during COVID in 2020, at the TPC Boston in the Northern Trust.

“I wish my golf memory was a little better, to be honest with you,” Scheffler said. “I remember the end of that round, the birdie putt I made on 18, but outside of that, I don’t really remember a whole lot. I remember I got beat by a bunch of shots at the end of that tournament. I remember that part. I think Dustin (Johnson), that day he was, like, 10-under or 11-under through 12 or something crazy like that.

“He ended up beating me by like 10 shots through the week. That one didn’t work out how I intended to, but it was a nice round.”

It strikes you. This week began on Tuesday with Tiger Woods emerging from back stage to read a 30-second prepared statement at a press conference, then disappeared. Woods hasn’t won on the Tour since 2019, his last memorable moment was at The Master’s that year. Hasn’t played since the 2024 Open, where he missed the cut at Royal Troon. Yet for all his issues outside of golf, his mere presence still gets a room full of golf glitterati and paparazzi buzzing.

Scheffler, with 20 career wins, four majors, needing only the U.S. Open for the career grand slam, has a long way to go to catch Tiger Woods’ records, or Jack Nicklaus,’ or match their mystiques, but he is only 30, and so consistently in the running week after week you wonder how many titles he will have racked up by the time he turns 40, if he will be the one bringing such a revered presence to the TPC when he reaches his 50s.

Signature Events like the Travelers bring most of the best players in the world together, the “Championship Series” events, to begin when the changes come to the PGA Tour in 2028 will be even harder. When the LIV Golf war finally ends, and all the great players who defected are back in the fold, wins will be even harder to come by in the coming years.

But there are days like Friday when Scottie Scheffler makes it look so easy, where the course becomes his Tour de Force. He started to gather momentum in the first round, coming in one shot behind leader Eric Cole with a 64. He birdied the first hole Friday, then bogeyed No. 2, and birdied five of the next six.

And then it started, the buzz around the course, the “59-watch.” Scheffler stayed focused on the next shot, which is one of his great weapons.

“The old kind of adage in golf is you have to be really smart or really dumb,” Scheffler said. “I don’t want to call myself dumb, but some of that, like, my long-term memory is not as sharp. Maybe it’s a little bit easier to kind of put some things behind me. But I also like going back and watching some of the good stuff so I can recall. As a golfer, I think you’re always searching for feels and kind of things that you like.

“Sometimes when you can get back into those moments, you can remember them better. For some reason, the 59 was a tournament in which I lost by, like, 10 shots or something like that. It wasn’t one where I would really want to go back and kind of look. I remember the feeling over the putt on 18 and stuff like that, but the rest of the round, I don’t really remember, for whatever reason.”

Calm, confident, relentless, Scheffler made five more birdies on the back nine, 30 in, 30 out. Cole shot 65, but fell back into a tie for third. Viktor Hovland shot 61, and at 14-under through 36 holes trails The Gold Standard by two.

“Obviously he’s the best player in the world,” Hovland said, “and you know he’s not going to give anything up. But yeah, it’s just kind of excitement, to be honest, to have a chance to go up against a guy that’s playing some amazing golf, and should be a really fun weekend.”

Akshay Bhatia is four back. But chasing Scheffler when he’s playing like this, his putter this hot, makes even a small deficit feel insurmountable. It happens. He has, after all, only one victory this year, finished tied for fourth at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock. But he has eight top 10 and 13 top 25 finishes this year, so “slump” or no, nobody is winning much these days without overtaking him, going through him.

“Who knows what the lead is going to be after today?” Scheffler said. “I’ve put myself in position now this week. Go home, get some rest, and get ready for tomorrow.”

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