Scottie Scheffler has been without question the best golfer on Earth for at least two years. Despite all that talent, Scheffler revealed on Wednesday that he recently lost a match to a friend with a 10 handicap.
The World No. 1, who racked up seven PGA Tour wins along with an Olympic gold medal last year, does not like losing. But this particular loss, as shocking as it may have been, actually made Scheffler happy.
“I still love cutting it up with my buddies on weekends and playing money games and gambling,” Scheffler said on Wednesday in his pre-tournament press conference at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I played last weekend and one of my buddies who is not a very good golfer, he’s like a 10 handicap, he beat me in our side bet for the day.”
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So what gives? It all comes down to those pesky handicaps.
Scheffler’s handicap is about as good as it gets. At the 2023 Memorial, GOLF.com found that Scheffler was carrying a handicap of +8.4. That’s more than 8 shots better than scratch.
With that kind of firepower, only the game’s best can compete with him straight up. But thanks to the magic of handicaps and net golf, Scheffler is still able to have a close competition with his hacker friends on the course. All it requires is giving his friends a whole lot of strokes. In this case, about 17 shots.
Without handicaps, he’d never be able to have a competitive match with even the best amateur golfers. But with them, he’s able to play with anyone, including all his golf buddies from his youth.
“Still some of my best friends to this day are the guys I grew up playing golf with,” Scheffler said on Wednesday.
Scheffler also explained his belief that net golf is one of the things that makes the game great and differentiates it front any other sport.
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“That’s kind of one of the great things about golf is I can go out with a guy who is going to shoot 90 and I can give him enough strokes to where we’ll have a good competition,” Scheffler explained. “That’s what makes it so fun about the game of golf. So I don’t think my position has ever changed on that, it’s always just been really fun.”
Of course, there are many ways that elite players such as Scheffler are unlike your average recreational golfer. One of those ways? Enjoying practice.
“As a professional I love being able to go out by myself and just grind and I love being able to practice,” he said.
That may be one of the biggest factors separating the pros from their 10-handicap friends.
