World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler shares hilarious story about losing to 10-handicapper

Even the best golfers in the world lose to the biggest of underdogs.

Tiger Woods at the 2009 PGA Championship immediately comes to mind. That year, Woods held the 54-hole lead at Hazeltine but saw his putter go ice cold on Sunday, losing to Y.E. Yang by three. Other significant upsets in golf history include Larry Mize defeating Greg Norman in a playoff at Augusta National in 1987, Michael Campbell at Pinehurst No. 2 in 2005, and then, perhaps the greatest upset of all: Francis Ouimet winning the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline.

Golf is the game of the unexpected: anything can happen on any given day, including the World No. 1 losing to an amateur who carries a 10-handicap.

Yes, that happened, albeit with strokes involved.

“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,” explained World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler ahead of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“And I was talking with [my coach] Phil [Kenyon] 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. That’s what makes it so fun about the game of golf.”

Last year at the Tour Championship, Scheffler revealed that he carries a plus-seven index — a preposterous figure even for the best player in the world. Based on that number, Scheffler had to give 17 strokes to his friend who plays off a 10 handicap. Scheffler had to give him a stroke on every hole except for the 18th handicapped hole, which is usually the easiest par-3 on the course.

Yet, despite that discrepancy, Scheffler’s friend holed out a bunker shot on the 18th hole to win the match.

“I got out of the way because I thought he could potentially shank it, and he ended up holing it,” Scheffler said with a laugh.

“It was pretty fun. I didn’t like losing, so I handed him the money and told him, ‘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.’”

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.