Ted Scott and Scottie Scheffler have had a prolific partnership over the past three-plus seasons.
But it’s a partnership that might not have formed, had it not been for something Scheffler was willing to do when courting Scott late in 2021 after the longtime looper split with Bubba Watson.
On the fourth episode of season three of Netflix’s “Full Swing,” Scott explains how his pairing with the world No. 1 came to be and the initial reservations he had about accepting the job.
“I think Bubba and I had spent so much time together, we really weren’t growing anymore,” Scott told Netflix. “So I was like, ‘I kind of just want to move on and do something else.’ Basically, a friend of mine approached me and said, ‘You’re about to receive a phone call from a really good player. This guy is really good. Like really good.’ I had never really met Scottie other than that we played with him in the New Orleans tournament and I saw that he was kind of fiesty, you know? That was one of the questions that I asked him when he called me.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if I want to work for you because of your attitude.’ When I posed that question to him, he said, ‘That’s a fair question and I’m willing to work on it.’ All I need is a little bit of hope and I’m willing to get behind anybody. So I decided to take the job and here we are.”
Scheffler admits that his temper was a problem, especially during the early portion of his career when he was still searching for his first PGA Tour win while fighting some putting issues.
“I used to fight anger issues,” Scheffler told Netflix. “I used to get too frustrated. Golf was too important to me. That’s kind of where I placed my identity for a long time. I try not to change too much but I needed to change something.”
Scheffler knew he needed to find a better way to channel and harness his emotions on the course. That acknowledgment allowed Scott to feel comfortable jumping on his bag.
The pairing immediately took off like a rocket ship as Scheffler won four times in his first season with Scott as his caddie, including the 2022 Masters. Scheffler followed that up with two more wins in 2023 and seven wins last year.
The Scheffler-Scott pairing has now won two Masters, an Olympic gold medal, two Players Championships, two Arnold Palmer Invitationals, two Waste Management Phoenix Opens and a Tour Championship. Scheffer has quickly ascended to become one of the faces of golf and has shown no signs that his recent stretch of dominant play, which has some comparing him to Tiger Woods, will end anytime soon.
“We all like the idea of a superhero,” Scott said. “Scottie is kind of having that sort of run [in 2024]. You see it in the kids and the people that want pictures and selfies and things like that.
“The star is growing at a scary rate.”
It all started with a needed attitude check.
“I’ll take credit for planting the seed,” Scott told Netflix. “But that was really a cool thing that Scottie was willing to work on that and it was exciting for me. I was like, ‘Man, this could be a lot of fun.'”
