College teammates Scottie Scheffler, Beau Hossler recall almost fighting during tournament at Texas

HOUSTON — The seriousness of the encounter depends on who tells the story.

Scottie Scheffler and Beau Hossler almost came to blows on the golf course when they were teammates in college. On a podcast appearance a couple months ago, Longhorns’ coach John Fields said it would’ve been a “battle of the titans.”

Scheffler is now the No. 1 golfer in the world and sits at 5-under 65 and T-2 after the morning wave of the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course. Hossler, who is searching for his first Tour victory, opened with a 4-under performance.

Following their rounds, they both recalled the events of that day, and Hossler said his former coach may have deflated the situation.

In the spring of 2015, Texas was playing at a one-day event in Lubbock, with then-junior Hossler and freshman Scheffler paired together for the morning and afternoon sessions.

“We were playing this mess-around tournament before the regional,” Hossler said. “Basically, we were both playing a match. I wasn’t playing him, I was playing a New Mexico kid and he was playing a New Mexico kid. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lubbock, but it’s very, very, very windy.

“I hit one on the water on 18, which was the ninth hole. You couldn’t even — it was so windy you couldn’t hear each other from however far apart, so
I didn’t even like announce what ball I was playing but I just hit. Two holes later, No. 2 is kind of this blind par-5 I think. We both hit it down the middle and whatever. I walked past the first ball, I walked to the second ball, it’s 10 yards in front. He hits the ball in the back and then I realized that that was not my ball that I was standing next to. We had different markings, but we both were playing a Titleist whatever, 3 with a Longhorn on it. One had a marking, and mine didn’t.”

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Added Fields on the podcast: “You would’ve thought Mount Vesuvius just went off, like we had a volcano 15 yards below us. Scheffler got so mad when he figured out that he’d hit the wrong ball, he ran up to the green, 260 yards on a dead sprint, picked up the ball, ran back, and threw it at Beau’s feet. Beau goes ahead and hits the right shot, and Scottie has lost the hole now. He’d just lost a hole, but it’s killing him. And now, they’re jawing against each other on the way up (to the green), and finally on the next hole, on the par-3, I told Beau, ‘We are not going another step farther until you apologize to Scottie for that.’”

Hossler told his coach he didn’t think he needed to apologize.

“He wasn’t happy,” Hossler said of Scheffler. “I was like, ‘Well, listen, you’re the one who hit the wrong ball.’ I understand like it’s not a — but like you hit it, I didn’t. And it was a bad deal. It didn’t mean anything, but it was just — we’re really competitive, both of us. That was the really cool part about our golf team at Texas, it was like every player on the team was like either a very good player or a pretty good player that was very competitive. We wanted to kick each other’s ass all the time.”

“I don’t blame him for not being happy about it. I still think it was his fault, he’s the only one who hit the wrong ball. I agree I should have checked closer that it was — that that was actually my ball, but one way or the other it’s a good story. The good part about friends usually is that lasted — he was pissed off and I was pissed off for about two hours and once we got on the plane home, it was OK.”

2024 Texas Children's Houston Open

Scottie Scheffler chips on the first green in the first round of the Texas Children’s Houston Open golf tournament. (Photo: Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports)

Although he didn’t get as descriptive, Scheffler said he recalls the day and how Fields’ story was true.

“I’d love to hear Beau’s side because we do like talking about it,” Scheffler said. “It was just one of those moments where we had been around each other I think for so long and you’re in the heat of the moment, you’re out there competing and something happens. Yeah, it’s pretty funny to look back on though, we get a good kick out of it.

“At the time we both played Titleist balls, and I had been playing the same number the whole day and he had a different number and switched unknown to me. Just one of those deals. When you’re around each other that much, stuff like that, mistakes happen.”

Texas made match play at the NCAA Championship that season, and the next year Hossler went on to win the Haskins Award. However, as Fields and Hossler. mentioned, it was two competitors going at it in the heat of the moment.

2024 Texas Children's Houston Open

Beau Hossler of the United States hits a tee shot on the 12th hole during the first round of the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course on March 28, 2024 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)

“Scottie’s one of my really good friends,” Hossler said. “We’ve had so many … we’ve grown up literally since we were probably 10 and 9 years old together, he’s only a year behind me. We played a couple years at Texas, but we grew up playing the same tournaments and now we’ve been out here on Tour together. He’s the best. He’s obviously having tremendous success, I’m happy for him. It’s a good story.

“But no, Coach Fields didn’t exaggerate.”

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'I'd have two green jackets': Dustin Johnson on freak injury that kept him out of 2017 Masters

LIV Golf and the PGA Tour will collide this year for the first time in two weeks at the Masters, one of four events where all elite golfers come together since the industry fractured when LIV started raiding the PGA Tour.

And although Dustin Johnson clearly views the Masters as a special tournament, just because he took the generational money offered by Saudi Arabia to join LIV, doesn’t mean he does not see those golfers who remain on the PGA Tour.

“Living down in Jupiter, Florida, I think half the world a golf lives here,” Johnson said Wednesday on a Zoom call. “So I see the guys all the time.”

Johnson was sitting in a golf cart when he spoke about his game, the Masters and the next LIV event, April 5-7, at Trump National Doral. Like the 12 other LIV golfers in the Masters, he’s hoping to peak the week he arrives at Augusta National.

The former world No. 1 (he has held the spot for 135 weeks, third most in history) had one of his worst years when it comes to majors in 2023. Johnson’s best finish was T10 at the U.S. Open. Otherwise, he tied for 48th at the Masters, tied for 55th at the PGA Championship and missed the cut at the British Open.

Johnson’s score (8 over) and finish last year at Augusta was the worst of his career, part of the reason the 39-year-old is ramping up his work this year.

“Just wasn’t pleased with my results,” Johnson said. “Putting in the effort, I think is the biggest thing. I just wasn’t happy with the way I played.”

Just how much that is paying off will be determined, although he does have one LIV victory on the season, winning the event in Las Vegas in February.

Johnson’s lone Masters victory, and one of his two major championships, was when he destroyed Augusta National in 2020, when the event was moved to the fall because of COVID. Johnson shot a record 20-under. The lowest Masters score when the azaleas are in bloom is 18-under held by Jordan Spieth (2015) and Tiger Woods (1997).

That also marks Johnson’s last win on the PGA Tour – he joined LIV 21 months ago. Johnson was asked if his game is approaching that level today.

“I feel like the game is trending in that direction,” he said. “Am I exactly there? I think it’d be hard to get back to as good as I played that week. But, am I playing good enough now where I can have a week like that? Absolutely.”

Johnson still “looks back” at 2017, when during the peak of his career a freak injury in which he injured his lower back during a fall at his rental home the day before the Masters started forced him to withdraw.

Johnson had won his last three starts that year entering the Masters.

“I’d have two Green Jackets,” Johnson said when asked what could have been.

Johnson is one of 12 LIV golfers who continue to remain exempt for the Masters and one of six exempt for all majors.

A 13th LIV golfer was added to the Masters field this year when Joaquin Niemann was invited after playing events in Australia and Dubai.

Instead of complaining about LIV golfers getting shafted in the world rankings, Niemann did something about it and played with the intention of earning that invitation. He won the Australian Open was T4 at the Dubai Desert Classic and got the invite he deserved.

“He’s played events to try to get his world ranking up other than LIV events,” Johnson said. “He’s done all the right things. And he’s played well on those events.”

All 13 LIV golfers headed to the Masters will be tuning up their game on the Blue Monster next weekend.

“It’s a big week for us,” Johnson said. “You’re gonna see a lot of guys out there grinding and working hard especially the guys that you know are playing the next week at Augusta.”

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Student-Athletes with Self-Reported Autism Spectrum Disorder are More Likely to Score Low on Common Concussion Test, Raising the Need for Autism-Specific Comparison Data

Study sheds light on a medical accessibility issue, the need for alternative or modified concussion assessment norms and the need for baseline testing PHILADELPHIA, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Schools and colleges across the country rely on Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and…

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This PGA Tour pro with nearly 400 starts had a cancerous lump removed, but he's back swinging

AUSTIN, Texas — Golf has always come easy to Omar Uresti, a PGA Tour veteran with nearly 400 starts and 14 top-10 finishes on his resume. In fact, he made his first ace at the age of eight, a fact that he still considers among his highlights with the sport.

After a successful collegiate career at the University of Texas, Uresti turned professional in 1991 and played 11 full seasons on the PGA Tour, earning nearly $4 million.

And although he’s only dabbled on the PGA Tour Champions, Uresti still plays frequently and even qualified (albeit controversially) for the PGA Championship five times between 2015 and 2021.

But recently he noticed a curious bump that was hindering his swing and causing some discomfort. Although the 55-year-old didn’t think much of it, he finally went in to investigate.

“I kept kind of hitting and rubbing over this bump on my leg and finally, after a couple weeks, I decided to look at it,” he said. “And when I did I was like, oh, that doesn’t look good. So I decided to go to the dermatologist and they biopsied it.”

Uresti was later told it was squamous cell carcinoma, one of the most common forms of skin cancer. Squamous and basal cells are in the top layer of the skin, called the epidermis. About eight in 10 skin cancers are basal cell cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. While it’s rare for it to spread to other parts of body, if it’s not removed completely then it can come back in the same place on the skin.

After getting the lump removed, Uresti said he feels fine.

2023 RBC Canadian Open

Omar Uresti of the United States hits his first shot on the second hole during the first round of the 2023 RBC Canadian Open at Oakdale Golf & Country Club in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

“I had to go back in and I missed the qualifier in Tucson so I drove back and got it done immediately,” he said. “There are not a bunch of tournaments going on. And so I had it cut out. I had five stitches or about a five-centimeter-long cut. They had to stitch it together and they told me two weeks with no strenuous activities.

“So, I’m finally back at it and the game still feels about the same. Hopefully, it’ll get a little better.”

Uresti played in five PGA Tour events in 2023, but failed to make the cut in any of them. He did post a 69 in the second round at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in November, however, and finished at even par, but still missed the weekend by five strokes.

Still, he feels he could break through at any time and add to his career earnings, which are nearly $4 million.

“It’s been kind of inconsistent,” Uresti said of his game. “You know, a lot of good holes and a couple bad holes but they’re making some swing adjustments lately and trying to get it back to where it used to be and it’s just a matter of the body letting it do it.”

As a player who has played in PGA Tour events in four different decades, Uresti is not thrilled with the current golf landscape and the fracturing that has transpired in recent years.

“It’s really a bummer that we’re having this war go on between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour,” Uresti said. “I think the commissioner may have overreacted a little bit and panicked. You know, I think if he’d have come out and said, ‘You have six release forms to go play other tournaments, on any other tours, and if you play any more than that, that’s it.’ If he just would have said something like that, I think it would have been OK.

“That way they would have had the big names, and we’d been able to have them as well.”

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'Rusty' (lol) Scottie Scheffler fires bogey-free opening round at Texas Children's Houston Open

HOUSTON — Coming into the week at Memorial Park Golf Course, Scottie Scheffler said he was rusty.

Sure, rust is a bit different when you’re the No. 1 player in the world against an average Joe on the local muni. But this week, the local muni is hosting the best players in the world at the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open. And Scheffler, coming off consecutive victories at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship, certainly didn’t show any rust Thursday.

He opened with a bogey-free 5-under 65 and trails Taylor Moore by one shot after the morning wave in Houston. If there were any signs of rust, Scheffler missed 11 of 18 greens, including his first three, but he gained nearly 2.5 strokes putting on the day.

“Yeah, I would say some key up-and-downs,” Scheffler said. “I made a nice putt there at the first to kind of get the round going and made some really nice up and downs after that.”

This season, 43 percent of Scheffler’s rounds have been 66 or better (12).

Scheffler held the lead for most of the back nine during his opening round. That was until Moore, who was defending his title last week at the Valspar Championship, made a birdie on the par-5 16th to sign for 6-under 64.

Starting on the back nine, Scheffler birdied Nos. 13 and 17 to turn in 2-under 33. Then on the back, consecutive circles on Nos. 2 and 3 propelled him into a share for the lead. Then he drained another putt on the fifth to take the solo lead for a bit.

If Scheffler were to win this week, he would be the first player to win three straight PGA Tour starts since Dustin Johnson in 2017. He would be the first to capture three consecutive stroke-play events since Rory McIlroy in 2014.

“I had a solid round,” Scheffler added. “Kept the card clean. Bogey free is always nice, especially around a golf course like this. It’s nice to be able to keep the card clean, like I said.”

2024 Texas Children's Houston Open

Taylor Moore (USA) looks at the 18th green during the first round of the Texas Children’s Houston Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports

For Moore, he began his round Thursday with a bogey, but a chip-in eagle on the par-5 third hole sparked his game. He turned in 31 and added birdies on Nos. 15 and 16 coming home to take the clubhouse lead after the morning wave.

As good as Scheffler was on the tricky greens at Memorial Park, Moore was better, gaining nearly three shots and more than 2.5 in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens.

“Hit a lot of greens,” Moore said. “After the first hole, just tried to see how many greens I could hit. Got off to a little bit of a jump start there on 3, chipped in for eagle on 3 and birdied 4. Yeah, just got into the round.”

Moore said he perhaps felt a bit more relaxed this week than he did as defending champion last week but added he doesn’t get too caught up in the pressure of a single event.

Beau Hossler, Aaron Rai and Adam Svensson each shot 4-under 66 Thursday morning and shared third behind Moore and Scheffler.

Playing with the world No. 1, last week’s victor Peter Malnati shot 2-under 68 while Will Zalatoris struggled in his 4-over effort.

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Football Apparel Market size to record USD 3.36 bn growth from 2024-2028, Increasing brand endorsements and promotion by celebrities is one of the key market trends, Technavio

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Marine Outboard Engines Market size is set to grow by USD 3.01 billion from 2023-2027, Technavio

NEW YORK, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The global Marine Outboard Engines market is poised for steady growth between 2023 and 2027, according to a recent forecast. The market, valued at USD 6.03 billion in 2017, is anticipated to increase by USD 3.02 billion, representing a Compound…

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True linkswear releases must-see limited 'Members Only' collection for Masters 2024

Believe it or not, the Masters is right around the corner. The temperatures around the country are rising, flowers are starting to blossom and Augusta National is once again primed to host the first men’s major championship of the year. To celebrate the best week of the year, True linkswear has released their limited “Members Only” collection — and it’s must-see.

The collection features three pairs of shoes, two hats and a polo. Each pair of shoes comes with a shag bag, golf towel and head cover.

Earlier this month, we highlighted True’s new spring collection.

If you’re interested in our other apparel and equipment lists, these are worth a look: Rhoback’s “Azalea Collection for ’24 Masters | Best golf shirts and polos | Best up-and-coming brands

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Ingrid Lindblad's record-setting performance, Florida State sweep at Valspar among college golf highlights from past week

Another week of college golf has come and gone, and numerous teams are wrapping up their regular seasons and beginning prep for conference championships.

Some golfers, like LSU’s Ingrid Lindblad and Florida State’s Luke Clanton, are in peak form. Other teams recorded milestone victories, whether it was for the coach or program.

There were also numerous records to go down, including a conference record.

All in all, the NCAA Championships at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa are less than two months away, and teams are jockeying for position to pay their best golf yet.

Here’s everything you need to know from the last week of college golf:

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