The summer of 2009 saw a 13-year-old Scheffler chasing a 16-year-old golfing star in the final round of the Byron Nelson Junior Championship.
DALLAS — Scottie Scheffler has a chance this week push his 2024 earnings over $50 million and put a cap one of the best seasons in PGA Tour history.
Fifteen years ago, he was just trying to keep up with the big kids.
The summer of 2009 saw a 13-year-old Scheffler chasing a 16-year-old golfing star in the final round of the Junior Byron Nelson Championship. It wasn’t much of a chase. Jordan Spieth was just that much better than the rest of the field, firing a final round 62 (9-under) at Lakewood Country Club to win by 11 shots, his second of what would be three straight victories at the prestigious tournament.
In classic Spieth fashion – even back then – our archived coverage of the tournament showed him having a little frustration off the tee, even en route to a 62. It didn’t matter much. Spieth went on an unconscious run of birdies.
“I told my caddie during it, once I was three or four under, I told him don’t tell me what I’m at, or else I’ll start thinking about what I can shoot,” he told WFAA’s George Riba at the time. “Don’t tell me what I’m at until I got about two holes left. And that’s what happened.”
Then our cameras turned to a skinny kid in baggy black pants: Scheffler, then an eighth-grader at Highland Park Middle School. Scheffler, like the rest of the field, finished far behind Spieth. But he still shot a final round 72, keeping pace with competitors who were several years older than him.
“It’s hard because they hit it so much further than me,” Scheffler told Riba. “But I got a good experience out of it.”
Scheffler and Spieth weren’t the only future PGA Tour players featured that day. Riba made a point to mention an even younger golfer: Plano’s William Zalatoris. You might know him now as Will.
Now a PGA Tour mainstay, Zalatoris was just 12 and the fourth-youngest player in the field in 2009.
“My goal a few years ago, I put some things down, and it was to play in this,” Zalatoris said.
Spieth accurately predicted big things were in store for both Scheffler and Zalatoris.
“Both of them, they’re going to be so good in a few years,” Spieth said. “They’re already amazing for their age, but if they’re competing with guys five years older than them, imagine what they do when they’re the old ones.”
Where are they now? Spieth and Scheffler have combined for five majors, and Zalatoris has seven top-10 finishes in majors.
It wasn’t long after that 2009 Byron Nelson junior championship that Spieth burst onto the national scene. He won the U.S. Junior Amateur later that same summer (and again in 2011), and then played in the main Nelson tournament in 2010, his debut appearance on the PGA Tour.
And as a 16-year-old, he made the cut.