Watching Scottie Scheffler clinically dissect courses like Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass, where he won his last two PGA Tour starts, is a study in detached execution. But there was a time when that emotionless brilliance was challenged.
Earlier this year on the Golf.com Subpar Podcast, University of Texas men’s golf coach John Fields painted a picture of a younger, more emotional Scheffler when he and teammate Beau Hossler almost came to blows.
Scheffler and Hossler were paired together in a match against Texas Tech and both were playing a Titleist golf ball. Fields, who was walking with Scheffler and Hossler, explained that Scheffler mistakenly hit Hossler’s ball, which resulted in Scheffler losing the hole.
“You would’ve thought Mount Vesuvius just went off, like we had a volcano 15 yards below us,” Fields said. “Scheffler got so mad when he figured out that he’d hit the wrong ball, he ran up to the green, 260 yards on a dead sprint, picked up the ball, ran back, and threw it at Beau’s feet.”
On Thursday at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, Hossler and Scheffler were asked about the incident.
“I’d love to hear Beau’s side, because we do like talking about it,” Scheffler said with a smile, following an opening 65 left him in a tie for second. “It was just one of those moments where we had been around each other I think for so long and you’re in the heat of the moment, you’re out there competing and something happens. Yeah, it’s pretty funny to look back on though. We get a good kick out of it.”
Fields explained that he made Hossler apologize to Scheffler for the mix up because, “you made a mistake, and it caused him to make a mistake. Say you’re sorry,” the coach told Hossler.
Although the incident occurred in the spring of 2015 and both Scheffler and Fields can laugh about the time the world No. 1 blew like a “volcano,” Hossler’s memory of the event is a little different.
“He wasn’t happy. I was like, well, listen, you’re the one who hit the wrong ball. I understand but, like, you hit it, I didn’t. And it was a bad deal,” Hossler said Thursday following a 4-under 66 that left him two shots off the lead. “That was obviously a penalty and he wasn’t happy about it. I don’t blame him for not being happy about it. I still think it was his fault; he’s the only one who hit the wrong ball.
“I agree I should have checked [the golf balls] closer, that it was actually my ball, but one way or the other it’s a good story.”
