Who the heck does this kid think he is, Jack Nicklaus?
Those were the words of a Corpus Christi Country Club member sitting on a hill watching a 14-year-old Scottie Scheffler play in the club’s member-guest.
Scottie was James Ragan’s ringer, a hired gun in khaki pants who flew into the South Texas city along the Gulf of Mexico. Who would ever suspect this gawky teenager and his pal, a 16-year-old cancer patient, were about to clean their clocks. James told his older sister, Mecklin, “Nobody’s going to know who Scottie is. We’re going to win this thing.” James smiled and broke into laughter at the thought.
Later, during an alternate-shot nine-hole match, one of five they would play against older men who were ill-prepared for the beating they were about to absorb, James hit a pitch that rolled across the green and settled in a back bunker. As Scottie surveyed the situation, he asked James to pull the flag.
This was the moment that led to that question.
“I’m sitting there as the dumb dad, and I’m not a golfer and I’m not going to open my mouth, though I wanted to,” recalled Scott Scheffler, the ringer’s dad. “Scottie got up there and I thought, 'If there’s a time and a place to make a golf shot, this would probably be it.'”
Sure enough, Scottie being Scottie, he holed it, and Mr. Scheffler, being as humble a man as you’ll ever meet, resisted rubbing it in. Instead, he turned, hands spread wide and palms up, shoulders shrugged and said, “Sometimes the hole just gets in the way of the ball.” Dumbfounded, the man on the hill pressed on. “Who is that kid?”
Scott Scheffler, replied, “Oh, that’s my son.”
The same son who, the night before the final day of the member-guest, stayed up late trying to chip in on the backyard putting green built for James. Jim Ragan, James' father, guessed that Scottie must’ve attempted 200 chips without holing one. He went to bed disappointed but, in the ...
