LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- There's a saying among professional athletes — the great ones, anyway — that Scottie Scheffler may as well wear embroidered on the side of his Nike hat.

"Keep the main thing the main thing."

It's a cautionary line, meant to keep people blessed with every luxury of millionaire status focused on the very thing that brought them that status.

Scheffler has two main things, it turns out. But it works wonderfully, because he might just be world class at both.

He stepped up to the podium Tuesday at Valhalla Golf Club after his first nine holes of practice for the PGA Championship a changed man. His wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, a son, last week at home in Texas, and he took three weeks off from the PGA Tour to be with her, change some diapers and reflect on the life they've created.

"I'm sitting there with Meredith, and we started dating in high school, and I think, a lot of the time, we still feel like children," Scheffler told reporters Tuesday at Valhalla. "So to be sitting at home awaiting the birth of our child and then bringing our child home was definitely a very interesting feeling, because I think, sometimes, we both see just the kid in each other. And being responsible for another life form is a pretty interesting thing for us to be responsible for. I think that's mostly what it was, just being thankful for where our lives have gone and where this game of golf has taken us."

This is not simply a story about a new dad, though. Scheffler is the best player in the world and he's drawing comparisons this spring to some of the peaks of Tiger Woods' illustrious career, lofty praise but praise that's becoming increasingly more appropriate.

Scheffler won The Masters last month by four shots, one of his four wins in the last two months. He's the best player on the PGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee, the best player on the PGA Tour in strokes gained in approach to the green, and he's fifth on the PGA Tour in strokes gained around the green.

Translation: Scheffler is the best player in the world by a mile.

But he doesn't think too much about all that. He doesn't think about the records he could set, the history he could make or the career he could amass. He's got a baby at home and a wife who celebrated her first Mother's Day on Sunday and then a birthday on Monday. They bring him as much joy as any major championship could.

"I married my high school sweetheart and I always wanted to play professional golf, and now I'm here," Scheffler said. "I was sitting there with a newborn in my arms and the green jacket in the closet. It was a pretty special time, I think, at home."

And that "family first" feeling doesn't stop with Scheffler. His caddie, Ted Scott, will leave Louisville after Friday's second round to fly home and attend his 17-year-old's high school graduation. He'll miss Saturday's round, leaving one of Scheffler's buddies to caddie for him in the cauldron of a PGA Championship in front of tens of thousands of people.

That's the way this goes, though. Keep the main thing the main thing, both at home and on the golf course.

"I was at home working out on Sunday, and it was like the fastest workout I ever did at home just because I was ready to go back in the living room and hang out with Mer and our son," Scheffler said. "... When I'm out here at the golf course doing my job, I'm able to focus on that. Then when I get home, I'm able to leave the golf course there and focus on being with my wife and son."

Scheffler is as impressive of a 27-year-old as you'll ever find, especially among a profession lined with over-inflated egos. Many professional athletes can't juggle all this stuff. In most cases, the family life suffers because the competitive juices don't stop. Scheffler, though, seems to almost have two brains. And he shuts one off when it's time for the other to come alive.

"I have my life out here in public, where I'm out here competing and playing in front of fans, then we have our life at home where we really just want to go home and hang out with our friends and go out to dinner and just be kind of regular old normal people and live our lives," he said. "Because that's really who we are, I feel like."

At home and on the golf course, he keeps things remarkably and refreshingly simple. Maybe, that's the secret formula to winning it all.

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