Before He Was Scottie, He Was The Sixth Man

During his senior season at Dallas’s Highland Park High, in 2014, Derek Cahn led every 4A school in Texas with 83 made 3-pointers. The day before Cahn left home to play for Texas A & M as a walk-on, he found himself in a game of H-O-R-S-E with the 6th man from his high school team, a rangy 6’3” forward who had led Highland Park in offensive rebounding. “We get to the end of the game, and I had made 19 straight 3-pointers,” says Cahn. “That’s not an exaggeration: 19 in a row. Unfortunately, so did Scottie. Then I missed and he made his 20th in a row to beat me. The guy is just a beast. I’m not sure he had ever shot the ball like that before, but he did it when he had to. He just refused to lose.” With a chuckle, Cahn adds, “I’m sure this is sounding familiar.”

Indeed it is. For all of Scottie Scheffler’s physical gifts as a golfer, his defining trait is his ruthless competitiveness.

At last year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, he waltzed into Rory McIlroy’s backyard and snatched the trophy, giving Scheffler three legs of the career Grand Slam. Now he is looking to become the first back-to-back Open winner since Padraig Harrington in 2008. It remains one of the more interesting questions in golf: how did a humble, God-fearing young man raised in an affluent suburb turn into such a beast? Scheffler’s hoop career at Highland Park is an important piece of the puzzle. “I was a good defensive basketball player in high school,” Scheffler says. “I was our lockdown guy, the hustle guy. That’s what happens when you don’t have a lot of talent, you gotta hustle.”That’s typical Scheffler self-effacement. “He definitely had some offensive skill,” says David Piehler, the head coach at Highland Park since 2006. “His footwork was great, his lateral quickness was really good. When his feet were set he was a really good shooter. Not really a threat off the dribble, but as a spot-up shooter he was dangerous.”

On February 7, 2014, against Forney High School, Scheffler made three 3-pointers in four attempts and scored a career-high 12 points. For his senior season he shot 39% on 3-pointers and 80% on free throws. Those are solid numbers at any level of basketball, but, as Scheffler suggests, defense was his forte. At the Burkburnett Tournament in December 2013, Highland Park played Norman (Okla.) North and its point guard Trae Young, who was already a star as a freshman. (As a senior in high school, Young would average 42.6 points per game and he would go on to become a four-time NBA All-Star.) Matched against Young for most of the game, Scheffler held him to 3 points.

That’s what a blue-chip golfer he was: he had college coaches watching him play a JV basketball game

“Scottie understood his role on the team,” says assistant coach Travis Snowden of a squad that went 27-5 and won the district championship. “He embraced the role of defensive stopper because that’s what we needed. He was an unselfish passer because we had some really good shooters. With those long arms and big hands, he loved to get in there and bang under the basket and grab rebounds. But if the defense ignored him, he could make them pay. He was just a solid all-around basketball player.”

Golf was always Scheffler’s priority, so he had talked himself out of playing basketball as a sophomore; that year he won his first of three individual state championships in golf. But Scheffler missed the camaraderie of being on the hoop team. “I was still going to the games and watching my buddies,” he says, “and I was like, Dang, I wish I was still out there.” His portal back into a highly competitive Highland Park program was to play on the JV team as a junior, which he did without complaint. One night, two preening coaches in head-to-toe University of Texas swag filed into the Highland Park gym. The varsity players were aflutter, thinking they were going to be scouted. But it turned out the two men were golf coaches who had come to watch Scheffler play. Says Cahn, “That’s what a blue-chip golfer he was: he had college coaches watching him play a JV basketball game, just to show they were invested in him. It was pretty funny when we figured out what was going on.”

Coach Piehler wasn’t surprised that Scheffler returned to the fold. “Golf is a lonely sport, you’re all by yourself on an island,” Piehler says. “We all knew Scottie’s future was in golf, but I think during his time away he realized basketball could help him get there. It was training his hand-eye coordination in different ways. He was using his body in different ways, using different muscle groups. Then there’s the mental part of it—the focus, the concentration that you have to maintain across a whole game. It was a different way for him to sharpen his competitive instincts.”

Says Snowden, “He turned into a tough kid. Tough as nails. You couldn’t rattle him. We tell our guys to play with emotion but not emotionally. Scottie epitomized that. It’s not surprising now to see how unflappable and unshakable he is on the golf course because we saw him developing that in the gym.”

Of course, basketball came with some risk to Scheffler’s person. In the springtime of his junior year, he was playing pickup hoop on a 9-foot rim in the driveway of his friend Corey Yaguchi’s house. “He was always the most aggressive player, always trying to dunk on everybody,” says Cahn, though Scheffler sheepishly admits that, even at 6’3”, he has never dunked on a regulation rim. Anyway, on this particular afternoon he stepped on an acorn and wrenched his left ankle…just a few days before the golf state championship. With his ankle heavily taped and left foot splayed out at address to take pressure off the ankle, Scheffler shot 71-64 to lead Highland Park to the 4A state championship while repeating as the individual champ. He let the legend grow by acing the 144-yard 17th hole in the second round. “I’m just glad Scottie’s on my team — that’s all I’ve got to say about that,” said junior Jake Potter.

You couldn’t rattle him. We tell our guys to play with emotion but not emotionally. Scottie epitomized that. It’s not surprising now to see how unflappable and unshakable he is.

There was no such fairytale ending for Scheffler’s basketball career: Highland Park was upset by Frisco Liberty in the first round of the playoffs. Afterward, he cried his eyes out in the locker room. “I always loved team sports, and I had some of my best friends on that team,” Scheffler says. “And all of a sudden it hits you: that part of your life is over. I’m never gonna play competitive basketball again, with a team, with a coach, with your buddies. It means so much to you and then it’s over in a heartbeat.”

Scheffler wound up playing golf for Texas, winning the Big-12 individual title as a frosh and earning the national Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award. His high school sweetheart, the former Meredith Scudder, attended Texas A & M, and when he would come for visits he often played pickup hoops with his old teammate Cahn. Scheffler and Cahn both embraced their Christian faith in college and they share a favorite verse from Mark 8:36: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Scheffler still has lustful thoughts when it comes to basketball. I offered him a time machine to transport him back to when he was 22; he could be an NBA All-Star who wins a handful of championships or keep his current golf career. He didn’t hesitate, saying,” The heart always wants what it can’t have. I love basketball so much, and to play in the NBA, a big part of me can’t say no to that.” With an aw-shucks grin, he added, “But I’m pretty pleased with the job I have now.”