Scottie Scheffler opens up on embarrassing loss to 10-handicapper

Scottie Scheffler doesn’t lose very often, even when he’s faced with some of the best golfers in the world. He won at a near-historic level last year, including the Olympics and the Masters. He remains the top-ranked golfer in the world by a good margin, but even he can lose on any given day. That includes a day when he’s playing, and betting against, a 10-handicapper friend of his.

Scottie Scheffler isn’t embarrassed by tough loss

Scottie Scheffler, as a professional and the world number one, just lost to an amateur friend of his. Despite the shocking and embarrassing nature of a loss like that, Scheffler believes it speaks to what’s so great about the sport of golf.

“I still love cutting it up with my buddies on weekends and playing money games and gambling,” Scheffler said before the Arnold Palmer Invitational via Golf Monthly. “I played last weekend and one of my buddies who is not a very good golfer, he’s like a 10 handicap, he beat me in our side bet for the day.”

This loss revealed something to Scheffler, who understands that by attempting to level the playing field a little bit, any player can give even the world number one a good challenge.  “And I was talking with Phil [Kenyon, putting coach] and that’s kind of one of the great things about golf is I can go out with a guy who is going to shoot 90 and I can give him enough strokes to where we’ll have a good competition.”

He added, “That’s what makes it so fun about the game of golf.” But despite seeing the silver lining, Scheffler is still a little incredulous that he lost. He laughed at the fact that his friend “holed a bunker shot on 18 to win.”

Scheffler even said he thought his pal might shank it, with Scheffler laughing about the ironic twist of losing on that shot. “It was pretty fun,” he admitted. “I didn’t like losing, and I handed him the money and then I told him, I was like, ‘Thanks, man. Now I got to go play a golf tournament next week, so appreciate the confidence boost that I just lost to a 10 handicap.'”

Scheffler may be the best in the world, but even he’s capable of losing under the right circumstances and to the right people.