Looking back at Scottie Scheffler’s amateur days in Austin

To the casual golf observer, it might seem Scottie Scheffler has appeared out of thin air in the past 13 months, with six PGA TOUR titles and a spot atop the Official World Golf Ranking.

But for those closely attuned to the game’s pathway circuits, Scheffler’s star had been rising for some time – notably in his college stomping grounds of Austin, Texas.

Scheffler played four seasons for the University of Texas, graduating in spring 2018 with a degree in finance. The Longhorns won the Big 12 Conference in three of Scheffler’s four seasons and finished national runner-up in 2016.

While a Longhorn, Scheffler captured the imagination of teammates and coaches with his dogged determination to become the best, unwavering enjoyment of the pursuit – and appreciation for the lighter side of life.

As Scheffler returns to Austin to defend his title at this week’s World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, here’s an inside look at Scheffler’s time at the University of Texas, as told by those who knew him best as a Longhorn.

1. SHADES OF SEVE

University of Texas men’s golf head coach John Fields often walked with Scheffler during tournaments. Fields supplied yardages and occasionally asked questions.

When Scheffler got out of position, Fields would inquire about what he planned to do. More often than not, Fields said, Scheffler failed to perform the shot he’d told his coach he had in mind. Fields started thinking about why that happened. He decided to try a little experiment.

“I stopped asking him,” Fields said.

And Scheffler started succeeding more. It was almost like he was at his best when he didn’t have to articulate a plan.

Fields saw such improvement in Scheffler’s ability to scramble that he thought of his own playing career, which included the 1982 season on the DP World Tour. That’s when Fields saw, up close and in person, Seve Ballesteros for the first time. The Spaniard’s skill at improvisation made a deep impression on Fields.

No one has reminded Fields of Ballesteros quite as much as Scheffler did in his four seasons (2014-2018) at Texas.

“In my mind, I started calling him ‘BalleScheffler,’” Fields said. “I still believe today that somewhere in his body is some remnant of Seve Ballesteros.”

The final round of the 2022 Masters Tournament convinced him even more of that rather bold comparison. Scheffler was 9 under for the week, a shot ahead of Cameron Smith, when his approach to the short par-4 third fell short, left of the green. CBS broadcaster Frank Nobilo told viewers Scheffler would be happy with an 8-footer for par. Then Scheffler drilled a low-running chip up the slope. The shot fell for birdie, his first of the day when he would become the Masters champion.

“It was like, ‘There it is again,’” Fields said. “It gives me chills to think about it.”

2. SPLINTERED

At the 2015 NCAA regional in Lubbock, Texas, Scheffler ended up with a thorn from a mesquite tree in his left thumb. He nonetheless shot a final-round 69 for the No. 2-ranked Longhorns, who won the tournament by four strokes to advance to the national championship.

A freshman who played in every tournament that season for Texas, Scheffler found assistant coach Jean-Paul Hebert after his round.

“How do you get a splinter out?” he asked his coach.

Hebert had a look. The half-inch-long thorn was too deeply embedded to extract. Scheffler saw a doctor, who told him he would need surgery to remove it.

But that was a problem, owing to the fact that he and the Longhorns had a national championship to play at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. Scheffler faced Eric Sugimoto, a senior at USC, in the quarterfinal round of match play, which the two players halved. Scheffler played all five rounds that week with a bag of ice on his thumb between shots.

Texas finished in a tie for third. Scheffler shot 72-78-72-72 for a share of 33rd place, then got the splinter removed.

3. ‘W’ IN WALKING BOOT

OK, this anecdote isn’t from his collegiate days, but it took place in Austin and is too good to omit. It’s another example of Scheffler succeeding despite playing through physical pain.

As a junior at Highland Park High School in Dallas, he sprained an ankle in a pick-up basketball game – days before the state championship tournament in Austin, where he was defending medalist.

The Highland Park golf team traveled to Whispering Pines Golf Club in East Texas for some practice. Scheffler showed up in a walking boot on his left foot. His head coach, Jeff Loyd, met him on the range. He genuinely wondered if Scheffler could even play.

Scheffler settled into his stance with a 5-iron. Loyd noticed he had his left foot splayed toward the target. It was the only way he could swing.

“This ought to be good,” Loyd thought.

It was. “He just ripped his 5-iron on a rope,” Loyd recalled. “I turned to my assistant and said, ‘I’ve seen all I need to see. I’m good. Are you?’”

A few days later, Scheffler captured the second of his three consecutive Texas 4A individual state titles. He and his teammates won the team championship at Austin’s Onion Creek Club by 25 shots. Scheffler punctuated the victory with an ace with a pitching wedge on the 144-yard 17th hole in the final round. He shot 65 that day to finish 5 under par, three better than anyone else.

He did all of it in the boot.

“It’s exactly who he is,” Loyd, now retired after 32 seasons at Highland Park, said two days after Scheffler won THE PLAYERS Championship.

“He’s never one to make any excuses,” Loyd said. “He was just a fierce competitor, and still is obviously.”

4. FEISTY ON THE TABLE

Scheffler’s spirit of competition extends to more than just golf. He was, in fact, the reason the men’s locker room at Texas required certain measures involving damage repair and personal safety.

A ping-pong table has long been a popular pastime in the team facility at the University of Texas Golf Club. Scheffler once got so upset at losing in ping-pong that he kicked a hole in the wall, according to well-placed sources. Moreover, padding had to be installed on the walls.

“He wouldn’t tell you he’s the best ping-pong player on the team, but he was,” said Hebert, now the head coach at UNLV.

“He’s just as competitive as it gets,” said Gavin Hall, one of Scheffler’s teammates at Texas.

“He’s probably the most competitive person I’ve been around,” added Taylor Funk, another former teammate.

When confronted about his competitiveness at the ping-pong table, Scheffler said (by way of apology): “It just comes out.” Just as it does on the golf course, through clutch putts and miraculous par saves.

5. A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PITCH

In college, Scheffler lived two years with Hall, a member of the Texas golf team from Rochester, New York. Hall said Scheffler was an ideal roommate – trustworthy, reliable, easy, a good cook. Scheffler even took Hall home for short holidays, which is when Hall saw Scheffler and his lifelong coach, Randy Smith, use an unconventional implement in their practice routine: a baseball mitt.

Smith had Scheffler hit different short shots to him on the range and right into his glove. “Low. High. Right. Left,” Hall said. “He’s a creator. He’s a magician with a wedge.” Hall said he admired the way Scheffler could work on something so important – his skill and range with a scoring club – and have a so much fun doing it.

The routine required a lot of in-the-moment imagination. In practice rounds and qualifiers for college tournaments, Hall and his teammates saw how that paid off.

In one qualifying round at Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Scheffler mismanaged a little chip shot, not once but twice on the same hole. Scheffler returned to the spot after finishing the hole and threw down a couple of balls. He wanted to get it right before he resumed his round.

“He was just determined to figure out why he’d messed it up,” said Funk. “He wants to know what he did wrong and how to get better.”

6. ARTIST AT WORK

Scheffler embraced the mission of higher education at Texas, testing new ideas and learning new skills. Notably new golf shots.

Doug Ghim, his teammate for four years, said Scheffler returned from winter breaks every year with another discovery.

“I’ve got a new shot,” Scheffler would announce.

“You’re the last person I need to hear that from,” Ghim would think.

Ghim saw the advanced learning up close at San Diego Country Club, for example, where Scheffler faced what looked like an impossible greenside bunker shot. His ball had settled on a downslope to a short-sided hole.

“He basically chipped it along the lip,” Ghim said, and holed the four-footer. “That’s a double, waiting to happen. He saved par.”

Ghim saw it at a qualifier at the Golf Club of Houston. Scheffler banged driver from the fairway, over water, to 12 feet.

“Eagle,” Ghim said.

It was college, so there needs to be a lesson. It’s this: “The unique thing about Scottie is that he obviously works really hard,” Ghim said. “At the end of the day, most people do out here. The key distinction for Scottie is that he works really hard and looks like he loves every second of it.”

7. ‘BLACKOUT’ MODE

Scheffler, Ghim and their teammates often attended the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club. Scheffler wanted to see how the top players in the world managed a course he knew well. He paid particular attention to how they rallied their best golf under the stress of match play.

Scheffler’s own ability to rally his best golf in competition earned its own reputation around the University of Texas Golf Club. His teammates called it the Scheffler “blackout.”

The entire world now is familiar. The “blackout” produced that 59 in the second round of the 2020 FedEx St. Jude Championship (then contested at TPC Boston). It allowed a 9-under 62 in the third round of the 2022 WM Phoenix Open, his first win on TOUR. It carried the young Texan to a 5-and-4 drubbing of Matt Fitzpatrick at last year’s WGC-Dell Match Play. It showed up again with a 65 in the third round of THE PLAYERS.

“When he gets in his space, it’s pretty sweet,” said Hall, his former teammate at Texas. “So present. So focused.”

With Scheffler on the team, the Longhorns played in three national championships and advanced to match play in one of them. That was in 2016, when Scheffler, a sophomore, shot a “blackout” 60 in the second round of stroke play at Eugene Country Club. Those Texas squads of 2014 to 2018 were absolutely stacked, built with the likes of Funk, Hall, Kramer Hickok, Beau Hossler and Doug Ghim.

“Scottie, I think, just kind of put it together the quickest,” Funk said.

8. CHEESEBURGER ENTHUSIAST

Beyond those blackout moments teammates remember from their college years, Scheffler is a son, brother, husband, native of New Jersey, pickup basketball enthusiast, ping-pong obsessive, driver of the same SUV he drove in college, shot-shaper, short-game shaman, six-time winner on the PGA TOUR, reigning Masters champion and member of Walker, Ryder and Presidents Cup teams.

What he is not necessarily is a gourmet.

In high school, Scheffler frequented the Burger House, which opened in 1951 in the Park Cities neighborhood of Dallas. Favorite order: cheeseburger (plain or, as they say in Texas “plain and dry”), with fries.

In college, Hebert often took responsibility for finding restaurants for the team, which necessarily meant finding restaurants where Scheffler could find items such as a plain cheeseburger and fries. Hebert accepted that particular task in 2018, when Scheffler was a senior on a Longhorn team bound for the Raleigh regional.

Hebert found a place. Scheffler shot 69 in the first round of the 54-hole event. He shot 65 in the second.

“So where do we go to eat?” said Texas head coach John Fields. “We go right back to that place.”

Scheffler shot 68 in the final round. He finished in fourth individually. The Longhorns won the regional. Back to the same restaurant they went.

“And that’s where we go to celebrate before we got on the plane,” Fields said.

The good luck ended shortly thereafter. Texas lost to eventual runner-up Alabama in the NCAA national championship.

But the pattern suggests an important attribute of Scheffler’s: “Why deviate when you’re having success?” Fields said.

“I don’t know if he’s superstitious,” he added. “But he’s one of those guys who, when something works, he’s going to do it.”

The food theme continued into Scheffler’s professional career. To recognize Scheffler’s first victory on TOUR, the WM Phoenix Open arranged a dinner for the reigning champion, his wife, Meredith, and their guests at Dominick’s Steakhouse in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The tradition began in 2019, when Rickie Fowler was the defending champion. Officials with the Thunderbirds, the volunteer organization heavily involved in the tournament, wanted to provide a personal dining experience for its winners. This year, Dominick’s Steakhouse contacted the Burger House in Dallas.

“I said, ‘Listen, I’d like to do something special,’” said Oliver Badgio, the restaurant’s chief brand officer.

On the Tuesday night of tournament week, the chef at Dominick’s delivered a bottle of seasoning from Burger House to Scheffler’s table. The restaurant gave Scheffler two more bottles of the seasoning to take home.

“It was a cool surprise,” said Pat Williams, a Thunderbird and the 2023 tournament chairman. “It’s fun that they know they’ll get to come back next year and do the same thing.”

Of note, the official menu for the Masters Club dinner in April recently made its way onto Twitter. Past champions in attendance for the occasion will find, as the main course, exactly what one might expect: cheeseburger sliders, “served Scottie-style.”

When something works, he’s going to do it.