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10 things to know about Scottie Scheffler, Highland Park grad and world’s No. 1 golfer

Scheffler claimed his second green jacket defeating the field at the 2024 Masters.

Scottie Scheffler is at the top of the golf world. With honors like “PGA Player of the Year,” “two-time Masters Champion” and “World’s No. 1 golfer” on his resume, it’s reasonable to believe the 27-year-old Highland Park grad can continue to make some noise in 2024 and beyond.

On Friday, he made headlines for a different reason. Scheffler was detained by Louisville Metro Police on Friday morning while trying to drive into the entrance of Valhalla Golf Club, the site of this week’s PGA Championship, according to multiple reports.

Here are 10 things to know about Scheffler:

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1. No. 25 to be No. 1

In March of 2022, Scottie Scheffler became the 25th golfer to earn the distinction of being No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He was the second Dallas-area golfer to earn that top spot, with friend and fellow former Texas Longhorn Jordan Spieth being the first. And Scheffler became the ninth American golfer to achieve that feat.

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Scheffler’s rise to the top was meteoric. Just two months earlier, he had never won a PGA Tour event. Two years earlier, he was No. 61 in the world. A year before that, he was a member of the Korn Ferry Tour.

The numbers only get more impressive from there.

2. Member of another exclusive club

Scheffler isn’t just a part of the 25-person “World No. 1″ club. He’s a part of an even more exclusive club, too. That’s the “59 club,” reserved for just 11 golfers that have ever carded a round in the 50s in a PGA Tour event (there have been 12 rounds in the 50s in Tour history, but two rounds belong to Jim Furyk, including the only 58 ever recorded).

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Scheffler’s 59 in the 2020 Northern Trust is the most recent round in the 50s on Tour. It was the second-ever sub-60 round to occur during the FedExCup playoffs. And it was the first-ever sub-60 round to happen without spectators, since it happened right in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Yet another Highland Park star

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Highland Park produced an elite professional athlete. Yes, the same Dallas high school that gave the sports world elite MLB pitcher Clayton Kershaw and NFL QB Matthew Stafford is also responsible for giving us the world’s current top golfer.

Scheffler wasn’t at Highland Park at the same time as Kershaw and Stafford. But his rise to the top came almost in lockstep with the other famous Scot products. Stafford won his first-ever Super Bowl title on the same day as Scheffler’s first career PGA Tour victory (Feb. 13, 2022). Stafford led the Rams to a win over Cincinnati while Scheffler outdueled Patrick Cantlay in a playoff to win the WM Phoenix Open. Meanwhile, Kershaw signed an eight-figure contract with the Dodgers a few weeks later.

4. A torrid run in 2024

Scheffler narrowly missed a third straight PGA Tour victory in March. At the Houston Open, Scheffler missed a birdie putt that would have forced a playoff. He finished that tournament at 11-under par, one shot behind winner Stephan Jaeger. A few weeks later, he won his second career green jacket at the Masters. His season victories also include The Players Championship (his second straight), the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the RBC Heritage.

5. Memorable aces in D-FW

Scheffler’s first start in a PGA Tour event came as a 17-year-old Highland Park student in the AT&T Byron Nelson. Having won the U.S. Junior Amateur, he earned a sponsor’s exemption into the field.

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Not only did Scheffler make the cut as a high school student, he grabbed headlines during the third round by carding a hole-in-one at the 221-yard No. 2 hole.

About nine years later, Scheffler once again impressed spectators from his home area. During the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, he sank the second hole-in-one of his PGA Tour career. That ace came on Colonial’s eighth hole, a 189-yard par-3.

6. Match play specialist

Scheffler’s win at the 2022 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play may have been what vaulted him to the top of the Official World Golf Rankings, but it was far from his only success in match play format.

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His most high-profile match play win came in September of 2021 at the Ryder Cup when he beat then-World No. 1 Jon Rahm in a head-to-head matchup on Sunday, the day the Americans clinched the Cup title. Scheffler won the first four holes of the match and never looked back.

Other match play success includes the 2021 Match Play, where he made it all the way to the finals for what was his best finish in a PGA Tour event at that point in his career.

Scheffler’s most significant amateur title — the U.S. Junior Amateur, which consists of a 64-person match play tournament — came in 2013, one year after Jordan Spieth won his second title in 2011 and one year before Will Zalatoris won the event in 2014.

Scheffler was also a part of Walker Cup (2017) and Junior Ryder Cup (2012) championship squads.

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7. State champion on a bum ankle

One of the first pieces of golf hardware that Scheffler won was a UIL state championship in golf. Scheffler won the 4A 2013-2014 state title by six shots in a two-round event. He was the only golfer to post a round in the 60s at any stage of the tournament, and he did so by shooting a Day 1 round of 66.

While that low score may be impressive, it’s far from the most impressive part of Scheffler’s state championship run. The weekend before the state tournament, Scheffler badly injured his ankle after a freak injury cause by an acorn. There’s some dispute as to whether it was a broken ankle or just a badly sprained ankle. But Scheffler shed some light on the injury to reporters in Augusta:

“So the way I broke my ankle was not tough, but I did play on like a sprained ankle or whatever in the state tournament. I was running down -- we were playing outdoor hoops at one of my buddies’ houses like a week before the state tournament, and I was running down the outdoor court, and I stepped on an acorn of all things, and my buddies will still make fun of me to this day because of it.

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“I stepped on an acorn. Because they were freaking out. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, we heard a pop, we heard a pop. And I was like, my ankle isn’t broken, but it definitely was stinging for a while. It was my left ankle, and I just played all week with my foot turned out to the side and just kind of grinded it out I guess.”

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“Left ankle. So I flipped it like that and just kind of used my hands and just went out and played.”

8. An early taste of major golf

Scheffler didn’t earn a spot on the PGA Tour until 2020, but he got an early taste of major championship golf almost five full years earlier.

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As a 19-year-old amateur who earned his spot in the field through qualifying, Scheffler (with his sister Callie on the bag as his caddie) found himself in the rare position of being the leader in the clubhouse after Day 1. Scheffler’s opening-round 69, coupled with three separate rain delays that meant the majority of the field didn’t finish their rounds, gave him top billing for the day, even though a handful of golfers still on the course were a shot or two better at -3 and -2.

Scheffler’s second round went much, much worse — he ended up missing the cut by one shot after a second-round 78. But he made his presence known on a major stage for the first time in his career, albeit briefly.

The following year, Scheffler again qualified for the tournament as an amateur. And while he never his name at the top of the leaderboard like he did early on in 2016, Scheffler’s overall tournament performance was much steadier. He finished in a tie for 27th place, earning low amateur status in the process.

9. Keeping expectations high

Entering 2024, Scheffler earned another big accolade to add to his all-time list. He was voted PGA Tour player of the year over 2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm.

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Scheffler was the first back-to-back winner of the award since Tiger Woods in 2006-07. The PGA Tour said voting took place from Dec. 1 through Dec. 15. Scheffler apparently earned 38% of the vote.

He had the best statistical season since Woods by leading the tour in all the important categories from the tee to the green, along with scoring.

10. He’s a new father

Prior to the 2024 PGA Championship, Scheffler and his wife, Meredith, welcomed their newborn baby boy to the world on May 8. They named him Bennett.

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