They might play for millions of dollars and fly private wherever they please, but on occasion we are treated to a nice reminder that, yes, PGA Tour players are people, too. Look no further than the two playoff contestants in last weekend’s Charles Schwab Challenge, Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler.
Burns and Scheffer are a perfect pair in this reminder in part because they’re really good friends. Such good friends that they shared a house together during Masters week, an eventful one for the Schefflers. (It was less eventful for Burns, who missed the cut.) They spent each night that week playing games of Sequence together, with Burns’ trainer winding up on the losing end most often.
So when Scheffler got up-and-down for a par on the 72nd hole of the event Sunday, he knew he’d be facing off against a good pal in Burns, who had lit up Colonial with a final-round 65. They embraced after the round, and even walked down the fairway together off the first playoff hole.
When Burns made his miraculous 38-footer from just off the green for birdie, Scheffler had no choice but to dap up his buddy and say what we all thought: Good putt, man.
When Scheffler missed his putt to tie, Burns’ wife Caroline came running onto the green. Tour faithful had to be wondering, wait, where is Scheffler’s wife? Meredith Scheffler has been ever-present this year during Scottie’s successes, but she was nowhere to be found at Colonial Sunday. It’s because she wasn’t at Colonial on Sunday. She was elsewhere in the DFW area, helping her sister get married.
Shortly after the playoff ended, Scheffler answered two quick questions with the media and raced over to the wedding venue. He posted a wedding photo to his Instagram story Sunday night, “Made it!”
Back at Colonial, Burns was going through all the trappings of being a tournament winner. He posed for photos with the trophy, posed for photos with the tartan jacket, even posed for photos in the secondary trophy: a ’79 Trans-Am Firebird.
Naturally, he spent a bit more time with the media, breaking down his relationship with Scheffler:
“We’re probably best friends. But at the same time I can assure you, he wanted to beat me more than anybody else and I wanted to beat him more than anybody else, and it just happened to be the two of us at the end.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a fun story that we’ll get to have for the rest of our careers, and fortunately I got the better end of it this time, but hopefully we’re at the beginning of these situations in the future.”
