Scottie Scheffler on Tuesday at Aronimink Golf Club.
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Scottie Scheffler is talking about scores.
This is PGA Championship week, after all, but this story is about a junior event he’d played in when he was 12. It was a qualifying event, he explained, and you could either take your result and enter that week’s main tournament, or use it in the future. But Scheffler’s dad, Scott, didn’t make it an either/or proposition. His son could play only in the qualifier. No tournament that week. The family had to be somewhere.
Deal. Scott dropped off Scottie. Scottie played. Scottie called him when it was over.
“He goes, ‘I don’t like this. This is not something I want to hear,’” the younger Scheffler said Tuesday at Aronimink Golf Club, the PGA’s host. “I said, ‘Well, dad, I won the qualifier.’ So if I win the qualifier, I get into the tournament, and I get to save the exemption. So I’m like, I got to play in the tournament.
“He’s like, ‘Scottie, I told you, you can’t play in the tournament. I’m like, ‘But dad, I won.’”
Of course, he’d remember that story.
His mom probably does too.
Over the years, we’ve learned some about Scheffler’s parents. Mom Diane is an accomplished lawyer. Dad Scott is a stay-at-home dad. When Scottie was young, the family moved to Texas from New Jersey. You’ll see the Schefflers occasionally at tournaments. At the younger Scheffler’s pre-PGA press conference, after being asked for advice for young golfers and their parents, and he said his parents never pushed him. They’d drop him off with coach Randy Smith, and he was off.
“I think there were more important things for them than my golf game,” Scheffler said. “I think growing up, especially when you look at youth sports today, I think you see a lot of parents that are overzealous. That’s not from a place where they don’t care. I think they want their kids to have success. I think they want them to do well. I think sometimes pushing them towards something is the best way to do it.
“Maybe it isn’t in some cases, but I think I did my best when my parents would drop me off at the golf course and let me do my thing. One of the first things that Randy taught my dad is when Scottie gets to the golf course, he takes his own bag off the golf cart, he sets up his own area. He doesn’t need you out there, this is his thing. I think they did a good job of guiding me along, helping me when I need help, but not pushing me to be anything other than a good student and a good person. It wasn’t all about golf with them.”
And his mom, Diane, did something that was “interesting,” he said.
She had a rule.
“She never asked me what I shot,” Scheffler said. “She said, ‘If you want me to know what you shot, you’ll tell me.
Good advice, and the benefits are clear. Later in the press conference, Scheffler talked about how he’s internally focused and how he enjoys improving, and you can see where that took root. Naturally, he’d share some scores, though, including the one in the story that started this article. Which makes you curious:
Did Scheffler play in that junior tournament?
And how’d he do?
He remembered that, too.
“So he ends up letting me play in the tournament,” Scheffler said, “and I remember calling him when the tournament ended, because the tournament was a couple of hours away, and he had to leave me there for a period of time. I was like 12 years old. He’s probably not going to be happy me telling this story.
“I called him after the tournament, because the tournament ended, everything’s cleaned up, and he’s not going to be back for another hour or two. So I’m just out practicing after the tournament. I called him, ‘Well, dad’ — I told him what I shot, finished fifth. Now I’m fully exempt. We don’t have to worry about the qualifiers anymore. He’s like, ‘OK, great. I’ll be there in a couple hours.’”
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
