Scottie Scheffler College Career: How a Longhorn Quietly Became Unstoppable

Looking at him now, it’s easy to forget that Scottie Scheffler used to be a scrawny eighth-grader who stood just over five feet tall. Not the bulldozer cruising Augusta’s fairways. Not the world champion, chewing a sandwich in between holes while wearing a navy Nike cap. In the fall of 2014, a young man from Highland Park who was exceptionally talented at golf packed his bags for the University of Texas at Austin with little fanfare outside of the small group of people who already had a sneaking suspicion that he would become something exceptional.

He had sort of filled out by the time he got to campus. In just six years, the boy went from being five feet two to almost six feet four, a growth spurt that left him still figuring out his own limbs, according to coach John Fields. By most accounts, his first year at Texas was absurd. In April 2015, he won the Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo. Two weeks later, he won the Big 12 Individual Championship at Southern Hills, earning the Phil Mickelson Freshman of the Year award. The following year, his back gave out, almost as if to remind everyone that he was still human. All sophomore season, one top ten finish. It’s the type of stretch that subtly challenges a player’s self-confidence.

In hindsight, one of Fields’ stories seems like a tiny piece of the Scheffler puzzle. When balls strayed off line during a tournament, the coach would walk inside the ropes and ask his player what he had planned. Scheffler was unable to execute the shots he had described. Fields stopped asking, almost instinctively. Scheffler began to achieve success. It seemed as though explaining the plan interfered with its execution. Fields began referring to Seve Ballesteros as “BalleScheffler” in his own mind after seeing him up close during the DP World Tour in 1982. A moniker that would only be used by a coach who had personally witnessed the Spaniard’s work.

Additionally, the grit appeared in odder forms. A mesquite thorn sank half an inch into his left thumb during the 2015 NCAA regional in Lubbock. After traveling to The Concession in Florida for the national championship, he played all five rounds with a bag of ice on his hand in between shots despite shooting a final-round 69. The Longhorns were tied for third place. The splinter was later cut out of him.

He was the type of player that teammates just trusted by his senior year. At the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, he qualified as a low amateur and finished one stroke ahead of Cameron Champ, the only other amateur to make it through the weekend. Then came the Walker Cup, where Scheffler defeated Connor Syme in Sunday singles and the United States defeated Great Britain and Ireland. That spring, he became a member of the Texas Cowboys spirit group. He earned a degree in finance from McCombs in 2018, which is a practical qualification that suggests he was at least considering the possibility that golf might not succeed, despite everyone else’s belief that it would.

Watching old footage from those years gives you the impression that the player you see today was already largely put together. The flight of flat balls. The footwork that, for some reason, never seemed quite right. The slight half-smile that follows a chip-in. Scottie Scheffler was not created in Texas. However, it sharpened him and gave him four years to play hurt, lose, win, and determine how much of his own talent he needed to give up. It’s difficult not to believe that some of Austin’s quiet still follows him now that he has four majors and a piece of permanent real estate at the top of the world ranking.