Scottie Scheffler’s infamous Masters 4-putt? Here’s what really happened

Scottie Scheffler and his caddie, Ted Scott, have made quite the team over the last few years — a bunch of wins, two Players Championship victories and a pair of Masters titles.

Their partnership started with a phone call arranged by a mutual friend.

“That was one of the things [Scottie] told me on the phone call, ‘I love the big moments,’” said Scott, during an appearance on this week’s GOLF Subpar podcast. “And you have to love the big moments. If you don’t, then don’t get in the big moment if you don’t like it. You are going to feel the stress, and you have to enjoy that.”

One of Scheffler’s first big moments as a professional came at the 2022 Masters, when he won his first major title. Sure, he had won the WM Phoenix Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in the two months prior — proving he was an elite talent — but the Masters is the Masters, and up until then he’d yet to have won a major.

You might remember that Scheffler cruised that week at Augusta National. He led Cam Smith by three entering the final round and held a five-stroke lead standing on the 18th tee. You might also remember what happened next — Scheffler’s viral four-putt on the final green.

His caddie, Scott, also learned a lesson that day.

“That was my fault; I totally distracted him,” Scott said on the podcast. “I heard another caddie tell me one time, ‘We had like a four-shot lead at Augusta, so I told my pro, you go ahead and walk and just take it all in,’ and I was like, that’s really cool man. He let his pro go by himself and walk, and I said I’m going to do that if I ever get that opportunity.

“And sure enough, we get up there [on 18 at Augusta] and I’m like, ‘Hey man, take it all in buddy. This is pretty sick.’ So he’s walking and like looking and it’s pretty neat, and we both stood on the front of the green when Cam was putting, and I’m like, ‘This is pretty special, man.’ And next thing you know he’s sword fighting and I’m like, ‘Whoa, let’s not take it all in yet! Let’s get this putt in the hole and then we’ll take it all in.”

Luckily Scheffler had some shots to play with. The four-putt double-bogey didn’t hurt him, and he won his first green jacket by three.

“I tried to keep my head down and just keep doing what I was doing because I didn’t want to break my concentration,” Scheffler said afterwards. “The minute I did was on 18 green when I finally got on there and I had a five-shot lead and was like, alright, now I can enjoy this. And you saw the results of that.” [Laughs]

You can listen to the entire episode with Scott below, in which he talks betting with Scheffler, the greatest shot he’s ever seen (which isn’t the one you’d think), Scheffler’s PGA Championship arrest and more.

Josh Berhow

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.