Inside the kitchen of his rural Louisiana home, Ted Scott likes to whip up stories. He’s an excellent talker — a common trait for a good caddie — and he speaks quickly, a natural spinner of quips and clever analogies.
“If there’s a story, he’s told it,” says his wife, Melanie.
Today, Scott is serving up breakfast too: eggs, bacon, avocado and toast. And cinnamon lattes meticulously concocted and poured into Masters mugs. There are millions of these ceramic collectibles in circulation, but how many are owned by a caddie who’s been on the bag for an actual Masters winner — something Scott has done four times in the past 14 years? He sets the frothy beverages in front of his guests.
Full disclosure: This story won’t entirely be about Ted Scott. He’s not trying to be rude; the 52-year-old devout Christian and looper for World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler rarely is. But that angle doesn’t interest him. Instead, we’re in his hometown of Lafayette, La., in balmy mid-January to visit places he’s passionate about and meet the people whose stories he thinks are important — the ones strapped with challenges but full of promise.
“It’s like, let’s help other people with the stuff that we’ve been given, with the blessings that I’ve received. Let’s pass it on,” Scott says. “I’ve never seen a U-Haul hooked up to a hearse, right? We can’t take it with us, so why are we getting all this blessing? What do we do with it? Let’s go help some people.”
On the golf course, Ted Scott understands the narrative shouldn’t be about him. Turns out that’s the way he lives his life too.
SCOTT’S SUV RUMBLES INTO a small parking lot off East Madison Street in the small nearby city of Opelousas. He’s a popular man around here — “Mr. Ted” is what most kids call him — but he’s not holding the spotlight today. He’s relinquishing it to Loren Carriere, who, beneath a giant “Grow Hope” sign, is pulling weeds in a community garden. It’s here, with Carriere’s help, that local kids coax arugula, collards, broccoli and strawberries from the lush soil.
Carriere, 44, is the executive director at Hope for Opelousas, a Christian community development ministry 24 miles north of Lafayette that provides free after-school educational support, mentoring and spiritual guidance to students in first through 12th grade. It’s an organization he helped start in 2008, when they had one yellow house on the corner of Madison and Walnut and a dozen kids. Now it’s more like a village: 10 houses, 125 students and six full-time employees.
Scott got involved when he met Carriere at a gym. They learned more about each other, and the caddie took an interest in Carriere’s mission. As a teen, Carriere got caught up in drugs. At 18, after a stint in jail, he went to a Christian-based rehab center in Mississippi called Home of Grace and left with a vision to help his hometown, where nearly half its residents live in poverty.
Inside the Hope house that hosts junior high students, Carriere points with pride to the photos of two dozen kids whose portraits line a wall. He talks about Kameron and Bre and others who represent just a small sample of the nonprofit’s success stories. His ambition is to meet the needs of 200 kids.
“I was lucky to have family that didn’t give up on me when I was at my lowest point,” Carriere says. “For me, it’s just my calling to be able to look at a young person and tell them I’ve been there, and to support them through the ups and the downs.”
Scott’s schedule doesn’t allow him to be on-site often, but Melanie and their two children, Gabrielle and Elijah, are involved as well.
“When I meet these people,” Scott says, “I can’t help but think, Why would God put me in a position to help? Because I’m gonna run into people like Loren — people who are gonna help other people. I want to get behind that.”
DAY ONE OF OUR ROAD TRIP includes good deeds in Opelousas and a dash of Ted-approved fun: a little pickleball, some foosball and a few local delicacies — boudin (Cajun sausage) and cracklins (fried pork skin) — dished out at a gas station. “But it’s a nice gas station,” he says, smiling.
Day two begins in downtown Lafayette, where he’s excited for us to meet Pastor Daniel “D.K.” Kelly.
“I’ll let him tell you his story,” Scott says. “But it’s just very powerful how God used golf to change his life.”
On East Simcoe Street, we step inside an abandoned Piggly Wiggly. Where you and I — and maybe even Scott — might see a hollowed-out building, D.K. looks around and sees a dream.
The 45-year-old Lafayette native used to sell crack on the Simcoe Strip, a high-crime area home to what once was one of the city’s most popular nightclub scenes. He was caught up in gangs, shot at, even stabbed. Perennially in and out of court, he caught a break at age 18. A judge let him walk, but with a stern warning. A prosecutor, encouraging him to get off the streets, had an unusual piece of advice: “Why don’t you go play golf?”
“I’m like, ‘Play golf?’” D.K. remembers. “I’m in the hood, right? We don’t play golf in the hood.”
Still, he couldn’t let go of the idea. Weeks later, with no concept of the game’s tiers of exclusivity or much of a clue how to play, D.K. strolled up to a local country club in basketball shorts and a muscle shirt. Asked to leave, he became irate, and the police were called. A member of the club, watching nearby, showed D.K. some grace by taking him to a Salvation Army and buying him golf slacks, polos and starter clubs. After dropping him at a driving range, he passed Lafayette’s newest golfer a ten-dollar bill and told him to buy a bucket of balls.
“That summer, I got a job at the range,” D.K. says. “So, I worked, played golf, got off the street, stopped selling drugs.”
In Mississippi, at Hinds Community College and Belhaven University, he found his game, lowering his handicap to a plus 2. In college, he found his faith too.
With a large-print Bible stolen from Dollar General (he’s given away 10,000 since, so he likes to think he’s been forgiven), he began leading Bible studies in his dorm room. At first it was three people, then 10, then 50. Eventually they filled a gymnasium.
To continue his ministry, D.K. returned to Lafayette without money but with a vision. He started preaching in a hotel room on the Simcoe Strip, then, in 2015, bought a nightclub and turned it into The Harvest Center Church. His congregation of 12 has since grown to 200.
In 2018, he was still playing tournament golf when he called one of the area’s most well-known part-time teachers for lessons: Ted Scott. They formed a friendship.
“I was like, ‘This dude is special,'” Scott remembers. “There’s just something about this guy that’s different, so I started talking with him, asking him questions. I started digging into his story.”
Scott sees passion in D.K.; you see it too when D.K. talks about his grand plans for the old Piggly Wiggly. He bought the building in December 2024 and intends to transform it into a 12,000-square-foot place of worship. Scott has helped with the fundraising — and with D.K.’s game too. A five-time tournament winner under Scott’s watchful eye, he’s even launched a learning center, where he gives golf lessons to inner-city kids. D.K. says he was once a menace to his own community. Now he wants to leave a legacy.
“When I’m gone, this church is gonna outlive me for generations,” he says. “Ted gets that. We get that.”
TED SCOTT GRAVITATES TOWARD two types of people: those he can learn from, and those he can help. The former is how he became not only one of the best caddies of his generation but also a world-class foosball player. During his senior year at Comeaux High School in Lafayette, he became fascinated by an intense foosball match he saw in a pool hall. He asked the best player he could find for lessons and later flunked out of college because he was spending too much time playing. In 1994, he and his buddy, Terry Rue, won an amateur doubles world foosball championship, although Scott still had dreams of playing professional golf. He was kicking around the mini-tour circuit when the Nike Tour came through Lafayette in 1999. After failing to qualify, he jumped on the bag for New Zealand journeyman Grant Waite hoping to pick up some pointers but instead stayed on as caddie. That led to a gig with Paul Azinger (who asked Scott to teach him how to play foosball) and eventually Bubba Watson.
Scott and Watson — who bonded over their Christian backgrounds — won the Masters together in 2012 and 2014. After they parted ways in 2021, Scott planned to retire and focus on teaching and ministry.
Then Scottie Scheffler called. After two weeks of praying for guidance, Scott agreed to take Scheffler’s bag in the fall of 2021. Their first win together — and the first PGA Tour victory of Scheffler’s career — came only months later at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open. Two months and two more Tour wins later, they triumphed at the Masters, which they won again in 2024, along with Olympic gold. Last year they added the PGA Championship and Open Championship to their list of major titles, and Scheffler won his fourth straight PGA Tour Player of the Year award — and with it, $26 million in 2025 on-course earnings. In just a few years, they’d morphed into the most dominant player/caddie duo in the game. As if to prove it, in January they jump-started their 2026 season with another Tour win — their 19th together — at the American Express.
Scott says Scheffler’s greatest gift isn’t what he can do with a golf club; it’s his willingness to ask for help. The first day they worked together, Scheffler quizzed Scott about chipping techniques. A few months later at Augusta, he leaned on Scott for pre-tournament preparation.
“He gives the reins away to people that probably aren’t as adequate as him, but it’s because he might learn something,” Scott says. “And he doesn’t agree with everything, but he’s like, ‘Let’s see what you got. Let’s see what you can teach me.’ That’s a great quality to have.”
Scott is quick to deflect praise; he says caddying is more about understanding the man than it is the other stuff. He says the one thing he does for Scheffler, which he also did with Watson, is hold him accountable for his attitude. But all those triumphs and Masters wins — one shy of the record (five) held by two loopers — don’t happen by accident.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that my career trajectory changed quite a bit when he came on the bag,” Scheffler said at last year’s Tour Championship. “I went from a guy that hadn’t won on Tour to a guy that started winning at a pretty good pace immediately upon him entering the picture. I think the results really do speak for themselves. He’s a great asset for me on the golf course. He’s a great friend, and I feel like we’re a really good team. He works super hard. He has a relentless work ethic as well. There’s a lot more to a great caddie than just giving me really good numbers all the time. Teddy has a lot of different roles on the course.”
Their bond, like the one Scott shared with Watson, is also rooted in their spirituality. Scott grew up believing in God but didn’t read the Bible until 2002, when he and Melanie were engaged and they began worshipping together. When he first heard a piece of Scripture that connected with him — Romans 3:23; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God — he sobbed.
“I was not a person who drank alcohol, didn’t smoke, didn’t cuss, but I definitely had a lot of bad stuff in my heart, wicked stuff in my heart that I just didn’t want people to know about,” Scott says. “And then once I heard that message, it was like, wow, this is good news that I don’t have to try to live up to a standard because I’m not capable of it.”
His faith has evolved since. Scott’s “Sunday Sermons” — short social media videos in which he offers encouragement, guidance or a life lesson — are wildly popular. He started them because he thought it would be good to have something positive on social media. He also launched an annual God-in-golf retreat with D.K. called “Who’s Your Caddie?” The first was three years ago in Alabama and included 15 men and three days of golf. Three types of people gather for these retreats: pastors (who aren’t allowed to be pastors on the trip); Christians who want to strengthen their beliefs; and others kicking the tires about their faith and eager to learn more. The idea is to spend time relating to each other and sharing burdens. The retreat has grown to 40 people and Scott has visions to expand it with chapters across the U.S. or by building a property to host it.
“We’ll pray for each other; we’ll lift each other up,” he says. “You know, ‘Let me get your phone number; let me encourage you.’ Now they’re walking together, and through life they have a buddy system. It’s just been incredible to see people who are struggling to come to life in a way that maybe they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing.”
ON A BASKETBALL COURT at Hope for Opelousas, Scott, a lanky 6 foot 3, leaps and tries to block a jumper from a teenager. At The Harvest Center Church, an interview is paused because he starts to play the drums. At Lafayette’s Oakbourne Country Club, he breaks from making goofy faces for a photographer to playfully heckle kids rolling putts on a nearby green.
I lean in and ask two of his close friends a question: “Is Ted like this all the—”
“Alllll the time,” they say in unison.
Scott’s enthusiasm is infectious. He makes you feel better. He asks questions that seem rhetorical but are, in fact, meant to be answered. He spends little money on material things but gives generously to causes important to him, like the places we’ve visited. He prioritizes time with his family and calls his wife every day when he’s on the road and listens, which might not seem like much to him but means the world to her. He talks about big hearts and forgiveness and growing and loving. None of this is much of a superpower, but it feels like it.
He can find inspiration anywhere, including at home, where his family has been dealing with the greatest challenge of their lives.
After breakfast, Scott asks, “Do you want to meet Joel?”
This wasn’t a planned stop but sometimes detours lead to the most important destinations.
Although he’s more like a son to Ted and Melanie, Joel is Scott’s 11-year-old nephew and has been living with them for the better part of the past two years.
On Saturday, August 9, 2025, Joel was shot in the head after a scuffle in a pickup basketball game and airlifted to a hospital in Baton Rouge. Joel’s mom, Hannah, called her sister Melanie, who also rushed to Joel’s side. Melanie called Scottie Scheffler’s wife, Meredith, who was with Scottie and Ted at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. Ted jumped on a private plane — arranged and paid for by the Schefflers — and jetted to Baton Rouge immediately after that day’s round. Scheffler handled Scott’s absence and the inevitable press queries discreetly. “A family emergency” was how it was described for months. The details are so much more vivid and heartbreaking.
The bullet shattered Joel’s jaw and went through the C1 and C2 vertebrae of his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed below the neck. He’s since undergone several surgeries, including a tracheostomy, and uses a feeding tube.
Joel was in critical condition for a month and rehabbed in New Orleans for another two before returning to Scott’s home in Lafayette, where his mom, the Scotts and a nurse tend to him in what is essentially a rec room. The space was customarily used for family functions: birthday parties, church gatherings. It’s also where Scott still occasionally worked as a swing instructor. But the Ping-Pong table and Ryder Cup memorabilia have been pushed aside for medical equipment and Joel’s hospital bed. These will be Joel’s main living quarters until a handicap-accessible house can be built for him and his mom on the property next door.
Joel can speak — an outcome not guaranteed after the incident — and has started physical therapy. He’s improved to the point where he can go outside with help and a power-assisted wheelchair. Last December, he led his school in prayer at its Christmas program.
“There’s a specific Scripture that says we’re supposed to pray about everything, and God will give you peace that surpasses understanding,” Scott says. “We can’t understand as a family why this happened, and why it’s happened to our little buddy that we love so much. How are we gonna get peace? How are we going to find peace in this awful situation?
“Only from God,” he continues. “He can give you peace when it doesn’t make sense. And even Joel is starting to show signs of peace, and he’s the one that’s dealing with the most — and that’s helping all of us.”
Joel is in good spirits the day we meet him. He always is, Ted says. He’s watching the animated sci-fi comedy The Mitchells vs. the Machines on the massive screen used for Scott’s simulator. He loves Spider-Man and is accumulating an impressive collection of football memorabilia, including gear signed by Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. He’s talking and smiling. Before the injury, he was a phenomenal athlete and competitor. “Full of life and full of fun,” the Scotts say. He played football, basketball and soccer. After one basketball game last summer, Ted called and asked him how it went.
“I had 18 points,” he said. “Everybody in the gym started chanting my name. It was just awkward.”
Joel needs around-the-clock care, although there’s hope he’ll someday be able to move his arms or at least get off a ventilator. They’re also looking into stem-cell therapy, a pricey process that could improve his neurological function. (Hannah has started a GoFundMe page.) Due to all the specialized equipment and long-term care essentials, the financial repercussions are significant.
“We’re not giving up,” Scott says. “Melanie is a fighter; she’s tough as nails. Both of us come from resilient people, competitive people. And so we’re gonna fight for our little buddy. He’s a fighter. He’s tough, man. He’s a tough little dude.”
Ted Scott is a man of unshakeable faith, compassion and kindness. You learn about yourself just being around him. Not necessarily about spirituality, but about decency. “Life is two things,” he tells me during our visit. “We all need help, and we all need to be helping.”
We say goodbye to Joel, forging ahead on Ted’s next inspiring adventure, aware that the strongest person we’ll meet today — a boy of just 11 — is in our rearview watching cartoons.
“Alright, buddy,” Ted says to Joel, looking back one last time before we leave. “I love you, man.”
This story was first published in the March/April 2026 issue of GOLF Magazine. You can reach the author at joshua.berhow@golf.com.
To support the people or organizations featured in this piece, click below:
GoFundMe for Joel Moscovis
Hope For Opelousas
The Harvest Center Church (Click “I want to donate”)
