[PHOTO: Cliff Hawkins]
Off the course, Scottie Scheffler seems like he’s about as relaxed and humble as they come. On the course, however, it’s no secret that the world No.1 can run a little hot, which isn’t all that surprising given how badly the man wants to win every tournament he plays in.
As far as we know, Scheffler’s burning desire has never manifested in a club throw, club snap or anything else physical. Though, according to his old golf coach at University of Texas, Scheffler’s on-course frustrations did once boil over during his days as a Longhorn, and it was because of a disagreement with one of his old teammates and current PGA Tour pro, Beau Hossler.
John Fields, who is still the head coach at the University of Texas, told the story on Golf . com’s Subpar podcast in January.
“That was an almost fight…” Fields said when asked about the incident, which stemmed from Scheffler, a freshman at the time, accidentally hitting Hossler’s ball while they were both in the same group but playing in separate matches. It was a one-day event hosted by the rival Texas Tech Red Raiders in Lubbock, and Scheffler and Hossler were grouped together in both of the day’s two sessions. Scheffler had lost his morning match, so he was already running hot.
In the afternoon match, on a par 5, Hossler and Scheffler both hit their drives, and one of them was about 15 paces past the other.
“Beau walks by this golf ball and he looks at it, and for whatever reason he thinks that he’s outdriven Scottie by 15 yards,” Fields said. “So, Scottie doesn’t think anything – we walked right past the ball and Beau looks at the golf ball. Scottie hits his shot, we get up to the [other] ball, Beau’s turn now, and he looks down and goes, ‘This is not my ball.'”
Scheffler, naturally, was not thrilled by Hossler’s realisation.
“You would’ve thought Mount Vesuvius just went off, like we had a volcano 15 yards below us,” he said. “Scheffler got so mad when he figured out that he’d hit the wrong ball, he ran up to the green, 260 yards on a dead sprint, picked up the ball, ran back and threw it at Beau’s feet. Beau goes ahead and hits the right shot, and Scottie has lost the hole now. He’d just lost a hole, but it’s killing him. And now, they’re jawing against each other on the way up [to the green], and finally on the next hole, on the par 3, I told Beau, ‘We are not going another step further until you apologise to Scottie for that.’”
After some initial pushback, Hossler ultimately agreed to apologise and they both moved on. With the recent run Scheffler is on, and the fact Hossler got off to a strong start at the Houston Open, one reporter was able to bring the story back up in Hossler’s post-round press conference, asking him if Fields inflated the story a bit or if it was 100 percent true. Hossler says it was very much the latter.
“No, it wasn’t inflated. He [coach Fields] probably deflated it, if anything,” Hossler said. “We were playing this mess-around tournament before the regional there. Basically we were both playing a match. I wasn’t playing him, I was playing a New Mexico kid and he was playing a New Mexico kid. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lubbock, but it’s very, very, very windy.
“No.2 is kind of this blind par 5, I think,” Hossler continued. “We both hit it down the middle and whatever. I walked past the first ball, I walked to the second ball, it’s 10 yards in front. He hits the ball in the back and then I realised that that was not my ball that I was standing next to. We had different markings, but we both were playing a Titleist whatever, 3 with a Longhorn on it. One had a marking and mine didn’t. He wasn’t happy. I was like, Well, listen, you’re the one who hit the wrong ball. I understand like it’s not… but like, you hit it, I didn’t.”
Funnily enough, when Fields told the story in January, he said Hossler said the same thing back then before agreeing to say he was sorry. Nearly a decade later, Hossler still believes it was Scheffler’s fault, which is the type of stubbornness you simply have to respect.
“It was a bad deal. It didn’t mean anything, but it was just – we’re really competitive, both of us,” said Hossler. “That was the really cool part about our golf team at Texas, it was like every player on the team was like either a very good player or a pretty good player that was very competitive. We wanted to kick each other’s ass all the time.
“That was obviously a penalty and he wasn’t happy about it. I don’t blame him for not being happy about it. I still think it was his fault, he’s the only one who hit the wrong ball. I agree I should have checked closer that it was actually my ball, but one way or the other it’s a good story.”
The bad blood lasted all of two hours, says Hossler. “That’s the good part of being friends. Once we got on the plane home, it was OK.”