Scottie Scheffler’s lead was gone, and suddenly the PGA Championship coronation that appeared pre-ordained was slipping away.

Scheffler had just dropped another shot, this time at Quail Hollow Club's difficult par-4 ninth. He began Sunday three ahead, but now saw himself tied with a surging Jon Rahm entering a volatile back nine, a chance at major No. 3 slipping away.

Those stakes, with a major winner in hot pursuit, are enough for even the game’s best to falter. Scheffler has shown himself particularly adept at handling these exact turning points. He’s the best in the game at many things, but one that helped him win the PGA – and will be crucial to his chances at the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club – is what he did next.

Calmly walking to the par-5 10th tee, caddie Ted Scott joked that Scheffler should start aiming more right – he was missing most of his shots left on the front nine – which settled Scheffler’s mind as he pumped a tee shot down the middle. His approach landed around the green, and Scheffler got up-and-down for birdie to retake a lead he didn’t give up the rest of the way. In a vacuum, it was a simple birdie on a gettable par 5, but the larger context is emblematic of Scheffler’s brilliance: He bounced back. Again, a simple concept – but one Scheffler has mastered. He’s done it better than anyone over the last three years. At Quail Hollow, Scheffler was 7 under on holes immediately following a bogey.

Scheffler has a way of making the sport, one of the least predictable in the world, look scripted. “Video game golf,” as Ben Griffin coined it during the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday last month, the site of Scheffler’s latest triumph.

When Scheffler is rolling, he’s inescapable and unpreventable. To call it fate would be discounting the talent and mentality that fosters this air of inevitability. Scheffler is our video game protagonist – unkillable and unrelenting with a seemingly never-ending stock of lives. Make a mistake? No bother. He will have a chance to correct, and Scheffler does it immediately.

Here lies the tension this week at Oakmont – the final boss of championship venues. No venue has proven more difficult this century. Angel Cabrera won the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont at 5 over, a winning score that’s only been matched once in the last 50 years. The scoring average of +5.6 over-par is the highest of any U.S. Open venue since 2000. When the championship returned to Oakmont in 2016, it was considered to be as easy as it could play, given washout conditions during the week. Yet, Dustin Johnson won at 4 under. Every U.S. Open since has featured a lower winning score. Bogeys are inevitable here. How you bounce back and avoid compounding errors will be central to whoever emerges victorious. And Scheffler’s better than anyone else in the world at that.

It’s a little-talked-about reason that might just be the decider in this week’s U.S. Open. Let us explain.

Scheffler makes very few bogeys as it is. In 2025, he’s made the fewest on TOUR, carding a bogey on just 10% of the holes he played. He finished second in bogey avoidance in 2024 and led the TOUR in the stat in 2022-2023. But when Scheffler does make a mistake, he hardly ever compounds it. Quite the opposite.

He’s better than anyone at getting the stroke right back. Scheffler leads the TOUR in what’s known as “Bounce Back,” the percentage of time a golfer makes a birdie or better immediately after a bogey or worse. Scheffler’s Bounce-Back percentage is 35.80%. In other words, more than a third of the time that Scheffler bogeys a hole, he birdies the next. His normal birdie rate is 25.90%, meaning he’s 10% more likely to make a birdie if he has bogeyed the previous hole. At the PGA Championship, Scheffler’s Bounce-Back rate was 60%. Only five times this season has Scheffler carded back-to-back bogeys.

“Just bogey the holes before the easy holes, I guess,” Scheffler said, laughing, when asked about the stat. “Going back to junior golf, I think I didn't handle things as good as I could have, and I feel like I've always battled to handle things the best way I can.

"I'm going to make plenty of mistakes over a 72-hole tournament, but it's more important for me not to let the mistakes bug me and to continue to bounce back and keep fighting out there. I mean, I feel like my attitude has gotten better over the years, and I feel like that's why that statistic would be, I guess, one of my stronger ones.”

On holes after a bogey, Scheffler makes more birdies than his average and hits more fairways and greens than his average. Scheffler has hit 64.5% of his fairways this season. He’s hitting 73.5% of his fairways on holes after bogeys. He’s hitting 76.5% of his greens on bounce-back opportunities, up from his overall average of 70.25%.

That Scheffler somehow becomes better after making a bogey is a stat that seems shocking until you realize it’s a perfect capsule of what makes Scheffler great – a confoundingly elite mix of talent and mentality.

With a home-grown swing that emphasizes using his athleticism, rather than swinging perfectly on plane, Scheffler is quickly able to snap back into form and focus. His swing could feel off, as it did through nine holes at the PGA Championship, but it doesn’t take long to self-correct.

“I'm not going to sit here and say that I've ever had the kind of ball-striking or consistency that he's had,” said three-time major winner Jordan Spieth. “What impresses me the most is his club face control is elite. It's maybe the best there's ever been as far as club face control. So his consistency is ridiculous.

“Then that just leads to his distance control being phenomenal,” Spieth continued. “There's a shot in and the worst he's going to do is 15 feet, and most guys are going to hit a good (one) there, but for him that was, like, the worst shot. … So it's elite consistency, and it's because of his tempo and club face control yields these kind of results.”

Moreover, what elevates Scheffler in these moments is what Shane Lowry said is mentality. Scheffler admits bogeys actually sharpen his focus, which can wane over the slog of 72 holes of competitive stroke play. Like a boxer, a quick punch to the face can re-center him to the task at hand. It emboldens the competitive fire in him, driving him to stop any negative momentum. It doesn’t push him to be more aggressive in rectifying his mistakes, it just forces him to hone back in on his process, take it one shot at a time and block out what others are doing around him – all the cliches that don’t make headlines but lead to his success.

“He plays the right shot at the right time, over and over and over again,” said Rory McIlroy, who admitted earlier this year he was trying to play like Scheffler in that way, prioritizing patience and avoiding compounding errors.

When Scheffler caught a mudball and made double-bogey at Quail Hollow’s brutal 16th during the first round of the PGA, he didn’t technically bounce back. But pars at 17 and 18 – the closing parts of the treacherous "Green Mile" – felt like birdies and kept his round from spiraling out of control. He hit both greens. For the tournament, he hit 90% of his greens on bounce-back opportunities.

Scheffler bogeyed the 10th hole during the final round of the Memorial, his lone dropped shot of the weekend, which cut his lead to just one shot. You can guess what he did next. He birdied the 11th, extended his lead to two shots and eventually won by four strokes. His Bounce-Back rate was 80%. Only three other golfers had a rate of 50% or above.

“He doesn’t make big mistakes,” said Shane Lowry. “We all have tendencies to make big mistakes, and he’s got one of the best golfing brains that I’ve ever seen.”

How will Scheffler’s brain attack and cope with Oakmont, which will land its fair share of jabs no matter how well Scheffler is playing?

In 2007 at Oakmont, there were 60 rounds in the 80s (reminder that Oakmont is only a par 70) and just eight under-par rounds. The winner, Cabrera, made 18 bogeys for the week. The field made a total of 2318 bogeys, 381 double bogeys and 64 triple bogeys or worse. No holes played under par.

Scheffler struggled to adjust to last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 and the unpredictable lies off the fairway. A miss off the tee could lead to a perfect lie in the waste area or a totally screwed shot against a tuft of wiregrass. That messed with Scheffler, who prides himself on knowing where the optimal miss is.

Oakmont will punish players differently. The course is right in front of the players. There are no tricks or gimmicks. It’s brutally difficult, but it’s not unpredictable or unfair. Who better to believe in than the man who makes bogeys at the lowest rate and bounces back at the highest?

Amidst the carnage of this year’s U.S. Open, remember this: Scheffler has all the cheat codes.