LOUISVILLE, Ky. — At least this week, Scottie Scheffler’s focus and patented ability to remain unflappable will be tested.
After all, this week’s PGA Championship a Valhalla was his first tournament in a month, the week after his wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, Bennett, on May 8th.
Then came Scheffler’s surprising arrest early Friday morning at the Valhalla compound, which Scheffler called a “huge misunderstanding” and “will be addressed immediately.”
Even more emphatically, after Scheffler’s second round on Friday, caddy Ted Scott, one of the team’s leading players, left town to attend his daughter’s high school graduation and replaced the world No. 1 player. The only thing left behind was the caddy.
Scott, who has been instrumental in all of Scheffler’s wins, including two at the Masters, was replaced by Brad Payne.
Payne is a PGA Tour chaplain who also happens to have caddied on the PGA Tour with Paul Stankowski and is a close friend of Scheffler.
Scott is expected to return late Saturday in time to return for Sunday’s final round.
“Family always comes first is something we talked about from the beginning of our relationship, and it’s the same for me and my caddy,” Scheffler said before the tournament. “It was a very easy decision. At the beginning of the year, he told me that was the day, so I had him arrange for a backup caddy.”
Payne, a former college golfer at Pepperdine University, joined Scheffler during warmups Friday after Scheffler returned from his arrest.
He was with him after the round at the practice range and was on the bag during Saturday’s round.
Caddy change or not, Scheffler struggled early in the third round.
Saturday was a predictable round in the wake of Friday’s arrest of Scheffler and the prison riot.
Scheffler was completely out of character and collapsed on the front nine of the third round.
He hit his tee shot into a bunker on the second hole, then hit his second shot poorly from the sand for double bogey.
He then hit a bogey on the par-3 third hole.
The situation worsened on the fourth hole. This hole is a short driver-friendly par 4, and players were eating this hole for lunch this week.
Scheffler hit his tee shot to the far left, over the cart path and onto the other side of the fence.
That forced Scheffler to take a penalty drop, chunking a chip on his third shot and leaving it in the rough in front of the green.
His second chip, or fourth shot, went about 10 feet past the hole and he made the putt to save bogey.
But the damage was done.
Over a four-hole span, Scheffler started the round at 9 under par and three strokes behind the leader, but dropped to 5 under par and seven strokes behind.
He finished in the front nine in a tie for 28th place at 6 under par.
From there, he spent the day trying to recover.
