Hard hitting journalism at a very young age.
I don't know about you, but I love when a little kid gets to "play reporter" and ask athletes questions during time with the media. Not only are the questions usually better, the answers from the athletes tend to be more thoughtful and honest since they let their guard down when getting asked something by a kid.
Ahead of the U.S. Open, which is being played at the iconic Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, North Carolina, world number one and golf-tournament-winning-machine Scottie Scheffler sat down and fielded questions from reporters. He was delighted when a young reporter stepped up to ask him something, but probably wasn't super pumped about the subject matter of the question.
If any other normal reporter would have asked this question, who knows how Scottie would have fired back. However, the somewhat harsh question asking Scheffler about his worst shot from last week's Memorial Tournament landed a lot easier since a child was the one to pose it:
"Hello, my name is Titus. Question I'd like to ask is last weekend, , you seemed to stay a little bit calm. How did you keep from getting frustrated from your bad shots?"
Once the kid mentioned "triple bogey," Scheffler lost it. After some laughter (he did go on to win the tournament, so I'm sure that helped), Scottie composed himself enough to respond with a very thoughtful answer:
"I was very frustrated so I'm glad you couldn't tell. You know, I think I've learned over the course of my career to stay as patient as possible. When I made a triple on that hole, I really didn't hit that bad of a shot. It just hit a tree and went out of bounds. I kind of reminded myself that I was playing good golf and as long as a I kept a good head on my shoulders, I could continue to kind of go about my day and was able to bounce back nicely. I think that's something that you just learn playing more and more golf. Bad breaks are going to come but it's more about your response to those things than really receiving the bad break."
https://twitter.com/pgatour/status/1800879890952266083?s=46&t=sK4ZxpXri80bfkXt_M8Cog
What a great answer from Scottie, and I'm sure the thoughtful response made the kid reporter's day.
Once again, Scheffler is the favorite to win the tournament this week (though I like Rory McIlroy for some particular reason). He's on an incredible run of championship-level golf right now. This graph below does a great job explaining how wild his season has been, and if it weren't for being arrested during the PGA Championship, he may have had a couple more wins under his belt.
https://twitter.com/JayCuda/status/1799932651437978042
Get ready for "1st Place - U.S. Open" to be added to that graphic...
