Scottie Scheffler has made a habit of winning golf tournaments. He’s also pretty good at making someone’s day.
On a recent episode of GOLF’s Subpar podcast, co-host Colt Knost provided a case in point. Knost was in Dallas recently, mostly for work but also for fun. That fun included a round with Scheffler at fabled Royal Oaks Country Club, where both grew up playing.
Knost can golf his ball but not like Scheffler, so it was only fitting that the World No. 1 gave his opponent five shots in a friendly match. Their amiable battle went back and forth, and ended in a tie when Knost birdied the par-5 18th.
But the most memorable moment of the day came just before that closing hole.
As their group walked back toward the 18th tee, which sits near the far end of the driving range, Scheffler glanced over at a group of kids working on their games.
“Hey,” he called out, grinning, “is that the junior club champ? Is that the junior club champ over there.”
The kid’s eyes widened, as Knost recalled it. A smile spread across his face as his friends’ expressions morphed into delighted disbelief.
Scheffler wasn’t done
“Scottie goes over and gives him a high five and a hug and says, ‘That was awesome,’” Knost said. “’I was so pumped to hear you won.'”
The youngster was now slack-jawed, too.
“It made his day, it made his life,” Knost said. “He’ll be going to school this week and he’ll be telling everyone, Scottie Scheffler knows I won the junior club championship.”
Co-host Drew Stoltz took the thought a few decades further.
“He’ll go to the senior citizens home when he’s 82 talking about that,” Stoltz said.
It’s a funny line that gets at something real. Knost has known Scheffler since he was a kid himself, so he’s had a close-up look at a personality most fans only know through social-media and TV. This is the essence of Scheffler’s image: gentlemanly but fierce competitor on the course; occasionally sassy with the media; famously uninterested in the usual trappings of celebrity. He doesn’t spend his time cultivating a brand or drawing attention to himself.
There is no persona. Only the person, and a likable one at that, interacting with the world in the same way, whether cameras are rolling or not.
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