Scottie Scheffler had a magical season in 2024, winning just about everything important while maintaining his no. 1 world ranking. But golf can be a “what have you done lately” game, so he’s focusing on the present rather than the recent past.

“Last year is last year,” Mr. Scheffler said this week at the Players Championship, which begins with Thursday’s opening round. “I’m not trying to replicate it. I’m not trying to look back on it. At the end of the day, it’s the past. It was a great year. I’m tremendously thankful.”

Duplicating last year’s results will be difficult if not next to impossible. Mr. Scheffler won nine times worldwide in 2024, including seven PGA Tour titles. He won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics, took home his second Masters title, and was the FedEx Cup champion.  He also became the first back-to-back winner at the Players Championship, and will attempt an unprecedented three-peat this weekend at TPC Sawgrass, where he could join Jack Nicklaus as the only overall three-time winner of the coveted event, considered by some to be the fifth major.

In addition to his dominance on the golf course, Mr. Scheffler became a first-time father, and spent a memorable morning in jail during the PGA Championship after being arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer. He was soon exonerated. “I lived a full lifetime in a year,” Mr. Scheffler said. “A lot of great things happened, and I’m very thankful for that.”

This year is already different. A freak hand injury while preparing Christmas dinner delayed by a month his start to the season. He has played four events, with two top-10 finishes, a T-9 at Pebble Beach, and a T-3 at the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines. He was T-11 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week.

He remains the no. 1-ranked player in golf, but limits his goals to being as prepared as he can be each week. “I have what I would think of as dreams and aspirations,” Mr. Scheffler said, “but my goal is to be as prepared as possible when I step on the first tee, and then I want to have a good attitude when I go out and play over each shot. That’s how I view success.”

Mr. Scheffler’s dominating season helped him become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2005-07 to win the PGA Tour Player of the Year in three consecutive seasons. He doesn’t wear a red shirt on Sundays or is as visibly intimidating as Mr. Woods during his prime, but Mr. Scheffler’s humbleness and family-first approach has made him the face of golf at a time when the sport remains splintered between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

Regardless of whether he seeks the attention, all eyes are on him this weekend to see if he can resume his dominance of a sport that’s so difficult for everyone else. “In a perfect world, the results would continue to be the way that they are and I could be no. 1 for the rest of my life,” he said. “But life doesn’t always go that way so I’m going to enjoy it while I can, continue to prepare the way that I do, and approach each tournament in a way that I think about success.”

The Players is also the first real showdown between Mr. Scheffler and the no. 2-ranked player in the world, Xander Schauffele. If not for Mr. Scheffler’s exploits a year ago, Mr. Schauffele might be the reigning Player of the Year after capturing two majors, the PGA Championship at Louisville’s Valhalla Golf Club and the Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland.

Mr. Schauffele’s 2025 start has been slowed by injury as well. A muscle strain in his rib sidelined him after the Sentry Tournament in Hawaii. He made his return at Bay Hall last week, shooting a 69 in the final round to finish T-40. “All scans are clean,” Mr. Schauffele said. “Super happy with how I feel. Didn’t feel any strain or any worse. So that’s a big bonus.”

Mr. Scheffler has avoided the controversy over the negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf on some type of partnership. A meeting involving the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayan, and two Tour player directors, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott, didn’t produce much fruit.

“It was obvious to me, very quickly, when they were setting up for the Israeli delegation right after our meeting and putting the Israeli flag and the U.S. flag and getting that room ready that our conversation was pretty low in importance of what was happening that day,” Mr. Scott said at the Players Championship. “The president had far more important things to focus on, and I encouraged him to go and do that for everyone’s sake after our meeting.”