LOUISVILLE, Ky. — At the very least, this week was going to test Scottie Scheffler’s concentration and patented unflappability.
This week’s PGA Championship a Valhalla, after all, was his first tournament in a month and the week after his wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, Bennett, on May 8.
Then came Scheffler’s stunning arrest on his way onto the Valhalla grounds early Friday morning, an incident he called a “big misunderstanding’’ that “will be handled quickly.’’
Add to that stress this: Following Scheffler’s second round on Friday, his caddie, Ted Scott, one of the rocks on his team, left town to attend his daughter’s high school graduation, leaving the world’s No. 1 player with a replacement caddie.
Replacing Scott, who’s been on Scheffler’s bag all of his wins, including his two Masters victories, was Brad Payne.
Payne is the PGA Tour chaplain, who happens to have done some caddying on the PGA Tour with Paul Stankowski, and is a close friend of Scheffler’s.
Scott is expected back late Saturday in time to be back on the bag for Sunday’s final round.
“That’s something we talked about from the beginning of our relationship was family always comes first, and it’s the same thing for me as it is for my caddie,’’ Scheffler said before the tournament. “It was a pretty easy decision. He told me at the beginning of this year that that was the date that it was, so I got a backup caddie lined up.”
Payne, who played college golf at Pepperdine, joined Scheffler during his warmup on Friday after Scheffler returned from his arrest.
He was with him after his round on the practice range and on his bag during the Saturday round.
Whether or not having a different caddie was a big difference, Scheffler struggled early in his third round.
Saturday was the kind of round you might have expected out of Scheffler on Friday in the aftermath of his arrest and jail saga.
Scheffler, completely out of character, came undone on the front nine of his third round.
He double-bogeyed the second hole after hitting his tee shot into a bunker and following it with a poor second shot from sand.
He then bogeyed the par-3 third.
It got worse on the fourth hole, a short drivable par-4 that players have been eating for lunch this week.
Scheffler hit his tee shot far left, across a cart path and on the wrong side of a fence.
That forced him to take a penalty drop and, on his third shot, Scheffler chunked his chip, leaving it in the rough, well short of the green.
His second chip, his fourth shot, ran some 10 feet past the hole and he made that putt to save bogey.
But damage was done.
In a span of four holes, Scheffler went from beginning his round at 9-under par and three shots out of the lead, had dropped to 5-under par and seven shots off the lead.
He finished the front 9 at 6-under par and tied for 28th.
And from there, he spent the day trying to play catch-up.
