Who the heck does this kid think he is, Jack Nicklaus?
Those were the words of a Corpus Christi Country Club member sitting on the side of a hill watching 14-year-old Scottie Scheffler play in the club’s member-guest.
Scottie was member James Ragan’s ringer guest, in from suburban Dallas. Who would ever suspect this gawky teenager and his pal, a 16-year-old cancer patient, were about to clean the adults’ clocks. James told his older sister, Mecklin, “Nobody’s going to know who Scottie is. We’re going to win this thing.”
Later, during an alternate-shot nine-hole match, one of five they would play against older, more experienced golfers, 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 actual moment that prompted the spectator’s Nicklaus remark.
“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 to the men, 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 asked, “Who is that kid?”
“Oh, that’s my son,” Scott Scheffler replied.
The same son who the night before the final day of the member-guest stayed up late trying to chip in on the backyard practice green built special for James. Jim Ragan, father of James, guessed that Scottie must’ve attempted 200 chips without holing one. He went to bed disappointed but in the next day’s shootout, when it mattered most, Scottie chipped in to ensure they advanced to one of the final holes on their way to victory. Reminiscing on the day, Scottie cracked that it was the last time members of the club ever let teenagers play in the tournament. Fourteen years later, members at Corpus Christi recite their own joke about that day, noting Scottie Scheffler is the only Masters champion to also win the Corpus Christi Country Club member-guest.
After retiring to the Ragans’ home, Scottie and James drank Dr Pepper out of the trophy. When James tried to hand Scottie the prize to take home, Scottie refused. “I didn’t come here for the trophy,” he said. “I came here for you.”
Think of all the kids, let alone the adults, who would have wanted the trophy for themselves. Here were two friends who were genuinely happy for each other. Perhaps no moment better exemplified their bond through golf, and through James’ struggle with pediatric cancer.
“He just never stopped smiling,” Scottie said.
Ultimately, James had two inoperable tumors near his heart. He died on Feb. 17, 2014, during his sophomore year at Rice University, more than seven years after his diagnosis. Scottie and his father attended the viewing and rosary service, and heard loved ones at James’s funeral service take turns sharing stories of all his efforts to put the lives of others first. The Scheffler family never has forgotten James and his mission to save children from dealing with the horrors of pediatric cancer.
