[PHOTO: Christian Petersen]
Let’s get the cringe-inducing details out of the way first. Scottie Scheffler sliced the palm of his right hand on Christmas Day using a wine glass to cut dough into pieces of ravioli. Holding the glass upside down, he applied sufficient force to break the base, and his hand crashed down onto the broken stem, delivering a puncture wound just below his middle finger – which he may or may not have employed in the immediate aftermath.
Regretfully, Scheffler did not disclose the contents of the ravioli. Spinach? Cheese? Sausage? That mystery remains.
Today at Pebble Beach Golf Links, the world’s No.1 golfer finally described the events that led to the freak injury, which required surgery and forced him to miss two intended starts in the first month of the PGA Tour season. But he is back now for the year’s second signature event, the $US20 million AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and considering that five of his seven wins last year came in signature events – the others were the Masters and the Tour Championship – the reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year and FedEx Cup champion is raring to go.
Having to sit around at home has something to do with his eagerness for competition, too.
But such was his lot after improvising with an instrument ill-suited for the intended purpose. Woodrow Wilson, forgive us.
“So when you make raviolis, we wanted to make them from scratch, so you’ve got to roll the dough and you’ve got to cut the dough, but we were at a rental house so we didn’t have, like, the right tools and the only thing there was a wine glass that we found,” Scheffler said, beginning to spin out the yarn of his travails. “I had my hand on top of it and it broke, which – side note – I’ve heard nothing but horror stories since this happened about wine glasses, so be careful. Even if you’re like me and you don’t drink wine, you’ve got to be real careful with wine glasses.”
We’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, he continued:
“Yeah, it broke and the stem kind of got me in the hand… You know, it could have been a lot worse. I actually talked to somebody who did the exact same thing and the stem went straight through their hand. It’s one of those deals where immediately after it happened, I was mad at myself because I was like, ‘Gosh, that’s so stupid,’ but you just don’t think about it when you’re in the moment. Yeah, definitely been like a little more careful doing stuff at home.”
Can you show us the scar?
“No.”
Chicks dig scars, they say.
“No. I’ve got a little piece of tape on it so you can’t see it anyways,” he said, holding up his hand to display a barely visible bandage. “Sorry. Right there, it’s right there. It’s, what do you call it, it’s nude.”
He was rolling. And not dough. Though after last year’s successes, he’s been rolling in it – about $US63 million and change in prizemoney and bonuses.
At least Scheffler, 26, tried to use his recuperating period wisely. He couldn’t hit balls or work out, so the Texan watched plenty of tournament replays of himself. You would, too, if you won eight times, including the Olympic gold medal. He had 10 wins overall if you throw in the Hero World Challenge and (stretching things a bit) the exhibition match in which he and Rory McIlroy beat LIV Golf League members Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.
“Eleven with the Presidents Cup,” he chimed in.
Fine. But who’s counting?
Scheffler makes a habit of studying his play, whether he wins or not. But especially when he wins. He owns 13 tour titles, including two Masters titles and consecutive wins in the Players Championship, the first man ever to win the PGA Tour’s flagship event back-to-back.
“I usually like to just check and see how things look. I kind of have a good understanding of where the swing is and where I want it and how it looks when I’m swinging really well,” he said. “Sometimes it’s good to go back and look at certain things on the TV, because you get good angles on TV, you get to see different stuff. That’s something that’s pretty common that I do.”
Tellingly, however, the educational exercise is more than assessing his golf swing. And more than about how he finished off victories, like comeback wins at the Travelers Championship and the Players. He’s searching deeper into himself, certainly a lot deeper than a broken wine glass can penetrate.
“I try to focus as much as I can on the internal stuff, so that’s why I went back and I watched a lot of the tournaments. I wasn’t watching late on Sunday, I was watching more the beginning of the week and seeing how I got into the flow of the tournament.
“I looked at a tournament like Travelers last year was a good example of a tournament where I didn’t necessarily play great the whole tournament, and late in the round on Saturday I was almost out of the tournament,” Scheffler added. “I had birdied the last four holes on Saturday to get myself into the golf tournament, then had a good day Sunday and had to win in a playoff. I think if it was my rookie year and I had a day on Saturday in which I struggled, I may have gotten more upset than I did, but I did a really great job of staying patient. I didn’t force things.
“Then you look at a tournament like the Players, a similar thing. Late on Saturday I birdied the last three holes when I was almost out of the tournament and I birdied 16, 17, 18 to give myself a fighting chance going into Sunday. It’s more… what I looked at, it’s more about my attitude and not giving up and staying patient and doing my best to grind it out because golf tournaments are played over 72 holes and I think a lot of times we get trapped in just what happens on Sunday. Golf tournaments are long, they’re a grind.”
Scheffler was profoundly unhappy having to sit at home these past few weeks, missing the season opener, The Sentry, and one of his favourite tournaments, the American Express. He pushed himself hard in practice last week at home in chilly Dallas to ensure that his hand had healed sufficiently. He might be rusty, but he said he has come to the Monterey Peninsula ready to compete – and to win.
The bonus this week, we’re relieved to point out: it’s a no-cut tournament.
