Scottie Scheffler’s secret spot, a celebrity golfer gets the cops called on him and the greatest golf shot you didn’t see last week

Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we are still tired from spending most of the last week on our couch. But not as much from getting up early to watch the British Open as from staying up late to watch “The Prestige” for the 10th time (It's so good!) ahead of Sunday’s final round. Little did I know Rory McIlroy was watching another Christopher Nolan classic, “Oppenheimer,” before he teed off. Great minds, right? Then again, it makes sense we’re on the same wavelength considering we both won green jackets this year. But when it comes to golf’s best lead actor, the award once again went to Scottie Scheffler. So grab some popcorn and let’s discuss Scottie’s latest masterpiece and everything else from a fun Open week.

WE’RE BUYING

Scottie Scheffler: He’s spent the last three-and-a-half years as the best player on the planet, but now he’s officially the CHAMPION GOLFER OF THE YEAR for the first time. The World No. 1 won major No. 4 by four shots—and it didn’t feel that close.

There are two really scary things for his opponents to consider. For one, this was supposed to be the major he struggled at most having limited success previously with links golf. For another, his lone weakness, putting, seems to have become a strength thanks to his work with Phil Kenyon the past two years. Scheffler ranked 161st on the PGA Tour in strokes gained/putting in 2023, prompting me to write a story figuring out how much he would have won if he just putted to the tour average. Then he putted to the tour average last year (77th in strokes gained) and won eight times. And in 2025, he’s now 15th in that stat after finishing second in the field on the greens at Royal Portrush.

So that’s Scottie, the reigning and evolving champion, but then there’s Scottie, the person. A LOT was made about his pre-tournament comments and rightly so. But essentially, this guy is able to shut it off when he leaves the course (usually after winning) and he’s even more concerned about being a great husband and father as he is about being a great golfer. And that’s admirable. As is the fact that he still goes to Chipotle despite the fact that he has enough money to open his own franchise in every state. And that he sometimes goes to a secret one so that he won’t get noticed by people. Great stuff. I wonder if he has been digging the new honey chicken as much as I have. That being said, he did fly straight from Northern Ireland to New York to appear on the "Tonight Show" and go to the "Happy Gilmore 2" premiere—claret jug in hand, of course.

Anyway, hopefully, he enjoys this victory for more than two minutes. And that he enjoys his next trip to Chipotle. Maybe he can drink some fountain soda out of the claret jug.

Harris English: It was another stellar major championship performance by the former Georgia Bulldog, but perhaps more than anyone, he has to be thinking “What if Scottie Scheffler never came around?” That’s because English finished No. 2 to the World No. 1 at both the PGA Championship and now the Open Championship this year.

Of course, neither were particularly close calls. And you never know how things would have played out if Scottie really didn’t exist, but that’s still pretty crazy. In fact, English is the first golfer since Ernie Els in 2000 to finish runner-up at two different majors to the same player in the same year (Els wasn't really close either that year to Tiger Woods). On the bright side, he won a lot of money and earned a lot of Ryder Cup points (which was his main goal when I sat down with him a couple weeks ago for an episode of The Loop podcast). So the only guy who putted better at Portrush than Scheffler should be playing for with Captain Keegan at Bethpage Black this fall.

Haotong Li: It seems like this guy has had multiple careers and yet he still hasn’t turned 30. There was the Sunday 63 at Royal Birkdale to finish third at the 2017 Open before going through some struggles. Then there was the 36-hole lead at the 2020 PGA Championship before finishing T-17 and going through more struggles. It was only two years ago that Li had a bad case of the driver yips and made just two of 22 cuts on the DP World Tour. But there he was representing China as the first golfer from his country to play in the final group of a major on Sunday.

And he played well to finish T-4, get his new pal Scottie's digits and earn a trip back to the Masters after a six-year absence. Although, he didn’t play well enough to keep this nickname:

LOL Scheffler Slayer. Maybe next time.

WE’RE SELLING

The Oakmont locker situation: What a mess. And that’s the only reason we’re still talking about it more than a month after it happened. In a letter the club sent to Oakmont members that went viral ahead of the British Open, it was announced that Wyndham Clark had been suspended from playing there until he meets certain requirements from the club’s board, including full repayment for damage he did to the locker room. Then NBC’s Kevin Kisner addressed the situation—which didn't really help:

Now Kisner made some good points, but blaming the USGA for the original photo of the damage coming out was curious. But obviously the biggest blame lies with Clark for A) damaging a sacred locker room and B) not immediately paying for those damages and doing whatever it took to get back on the club’s good side. You can say this other stuff didn’t have to come out, but it might not have if Clark had taken care of this sooner. Or, had, you know, not smashed up some lockers. In any event, despite all this, an apologetic Clark (on Sunday) actually finished T-4. We’ll have to wait and see if he’s back at Oakmont for the 2033 U.S. Open. In the meantime, he no longer has one of the craziest Wikipedia major grids of all time.

Shane Lowry’s penalty situation: Another messy predicament in which no parties came out looking good. For one, it’s kind of unfair for TV cameras to pick up on something that wouldn’t be picked up in a group without TV cameras. For another, I don’t know how Shane Lowry (who I believe didn’t see it in real time) can be upset, even if the R&A steered him toward accepting a penalty, when he clearly caused his golf ball to move. It’s like Kisner being upset by that Oakmont photo getting out. It still happened. It’s still a crime! And him only going along with it because he didn't want to get ripped by Golf Twitter seems weird.

But, finally, I don’t think the punishment fits the crime. A TWO-shot penalty seems a bit severe here. Especially when you tap your ball off the tee by accident, you replace it with no penalty. (The old “That’s 1” joke.) Anyway, at least Lowry wasn’t among the leaders when this happened.

Cam Smith: There were plenty of big names to miss the cut (We see you too, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Cantlay) but none have had quite as disappointing of a year as the 2022 Open champ. The Aussie was the only golfer to play in all four majors in 2025 and miss all four cuts.

And dating back to last year’s Open, he’s failed to make it to the weekend in the last five majors. On the bright side, that leaves the LIV star more time to fish, but this is an alarming drop off from a guy who had a case as being the best player in the world when he left the PGA Tour three years ago.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour season rolls on with a trip to the Gopher State for the 3M Open, AKA that one they play in Minnesota. Not going to lie, it’s not the greatest field. And it’s always tough to follow up the last major of the year. But there’s still a lot on the line as players jockey to get into the top 70 by the end of next week to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs and keep their tour cards. And Tiger Woods—and Charlie Woods—will be at the U.S. Junior at Trinity Forest:

Hopefully we’ll see Big Cat actually playing in a tournament again soon.

Random tournament fact: Matthew Wolff won the inaugural 3M Open in 2019 by making this walk-off eagle to beat Bryson DeChambeau and Collin Morikawa:

Man, that seems like another lifetime ago. Guessing it does for Matt as well.

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

—There will be a bat in the CBS Golf booth this week: 1 MILLION-to-1 odds

—Haotong Li will win this week: 65-to-1 odds

—Haotong Li will text with new pal Scottie Scheffler if he does: LOCK

TWEET(S) OF THE WEEK

There were so many great ones this week! From those dealing with Scottie:

To this incredible compilation of Shane Lowry hot mic moments:

Nice job by Austin Sapin, by the way. To our own Christopher Powers jumping on this funny Bryson reaction:

And, finally, to Club Pro Guy’s reaction to the viral Coldplay concert video:

Great job by all of Golf Twitter chipping in on the final major week of the year.

PHOTO(S) OF THE WEEK

But we’re not done! Our Jamie Kennedy spotted TaylorMade whitewashing—or hairwashing, in this case—to celebrate Scottie’s latest major triumph:

And we thought Rory McIlroy hitting two golf balls at the same time was bizarre. As one coworker who shall go unnamed said, “Speaking for the follicly-challenged everywhere this is offensive on several levels.”

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK

A bat got into the NBC booth!

And our Shane Ryan had a fun interview with Kevin Kisner, who, thankfully, survived the ordeal.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (NON-OPEN DIVISION)

One of the greatest—and craziest—shots you’ll ever see was pulled off last week. But you probably missed it because it didn’t happen anywhere near Royal Portrush.

That’s why you always video if one of your buddies is in a tough spot.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (PRANK DIVISION)

OK, so it’s a lot funnier watching this than it would be to actually be the golfer checking in.

THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

Bennett Scheffler stole the show again after his dad’s latest with his Scottie-like footwork:

And this unimpressed pose:

At this rate, Bennett is going to get more Sunday air-time than 90 percent of PGA Tour pros will in their careers.

THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION(?)

There have been some tense text exchanges involving golf that have gone viral of late and this guy apparently puts music to them. And it’s brilliant.

Keep ‘em coming, TheParFather.

THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS

Our guy Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo went on a Scotland golf trip with his son and others, that included playing Royal Dornoch. The only problem? He had a nightmare getting there and so did his son’s clubs. And he went on such a rant at Heathrow that they called the cops on him! Fortunately, he didn't get cuffed like Scottie at the PGA last year. Anyway, here’s Mad Dog breaking it down on ESPN’s “First Take” as only he can:

Amazing stuff. Well, not from the airlines. Not that Mad Dog is alone. My group just had two flights canceled coming back from my annual golf trip and had to spend the night in Detroit. Having an issue with air travel these days is a bigger lock than Scottie Scheffler at a major.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"He's a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us.” —Xander Schauffele. Remember when there were a bunch of young pros saying they wished they could experience competing against prime Tiger? (And Tiger biographer Armen Keteyian delivered that all-time quote in the HBO doc?) Well, they’re kinda getting that wish now with Scottie.

THIS AND THAT

Congrats to Ryan Gerard on winning his first PGA Tour title at the Barracuda Championship. I always feel bad for guys winning the week of majors because no one is paying attention, but then I see he still got paid $720K to play golf and that feeling quickly goes away. … Congrats to John Daly II on winning the Southern Amateur:

It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around someone with Hooters and Manscaped endorsement deals to be considered an amateur, but that’s the world we live in today. Good for him. … Shout-out to our Shane Ryan for both a brilliant breakdown of Scottie’s dominance as well as giving everyone a (kinda fun?) history lesson about Northern Ireland. Shane is as versatile as Scottie is on the course. … And, finally, I went out to dinner with my family and it was a little chilly so I tossed on a jacket. A green jacket:

See, Scottie? You can be a great dad and celebrate your wins for more than two minutes!

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Why doesn’t “The Prestige” get more, um, prestige?

What’s Scottie Scheffler’s favorite movie?

Will there ever be an actual Scheffler Slayer?