PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Scottie Scheffler felt frustrated sitting at home for two tournaments he normally plays while recovering from glass puncturing the palm of his right hand while making ravioli. A big part of him was thankful the injury wasn’t worse.
Scheffler went into detail Tuesday about how he injured his hand making Christmas dinner, and how he practised hard early last week in cold weather in Dallas to feel confident he wasn’t returning to the PGA Tour too soon.
He makes his season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the second $20-million signature event with an 80-man field, including amateur partners for the opening two rounds at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill.
Scheffler played Cypress Point on Monday and Pebble Beach on Tuesday, without a bandage and swinging as freely as ever.
As for the fateful dinner?
Scheffler said he and his family wanted to make ravioli from scratch, so they rolled the dough but were in a rental house and didn’t have the right tools to cut the pasta. He found a wine glass, and that’s when the trouble began.
“I had my hand on top and it broke,” he said. “I’ve heard nothing but horror stories since this happened about wine glasses, so be careful. … It broke and the stem kind of got me in the hand. I can’t live in a bubble, like I’ve got to live my life and accidents happen.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he said. “I actually talked to somebody who did the exact same thing and the stem went straight through their hand. It’s one of those deals where immediately after it happened I was mad at myself because I was like, ‘Gosh, that’s so stupid.’ But you just don’t think about it when you’re in the moment.”
It was one of the few mistakes Scheffler made all year.
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Rory McIlroy, in his 18th full season as a pro, said Scheffler stood out in 2024 beyond his seven PGA Tour titles, his second green jacket and the Olympic gold medal.
“I’ve never — this is anyone, this is Tiger, this is in the history of golf — I don’t think I’ve ever seen a golfer play as many bogey-free rounds as Scottie,” McIlroy said. “He just doesn’t make mistakes. He plays the right shot at the right time over and over and over again.”
McIlroy had another reaction when asked what he thought when heard the news of Scheffler suffering the injury while preparing dinner. He jokingly replied, “I think he made enough money to hire a chef. It’s like, ‘Why are cooking yourself?”‘
“I’ve got a chef. Her name’s Meredith,” Scheffler said with a laugh, referring to his wife. “She’s pretty cute.”
Scheffler had a tiny, clear bandage over the spot where he had surgery to remove the shards of glass — upper palm, right below the middle finger, and that’s as demonstrative as he got.
He had to miss The Sentry at Kapalua, a tournament he enjoys because it allows him to shake off whatever rust he might have accumulated over the holidays.
He missed The American Express in the California desert, another tournament he enjoys playing because it has good weather and gives him an indicator of his game. Palm Springs is about birdies, not his best brand of golf.
“Missing those events is not fun,” Scheffler said.
He watched more golf than usual, including a package of video of his wins that let him observe what he was thinking and feeling during the course of the tournaments. He also watched the tournaments he was missing.
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“It was definitely still frustrating watching golf on TV and not being able to play,” he said.
Scheffler didn’t decide until Friday to enter Pebble Beach. He said he made an effort to hit a lot of golf balls early last week, wanting to push himself hard to make sure there were no issues when he got to a tournament.
“Tried to work out some of that soreness and the scar tissue and stuff that goes in there after surgery,” he said. “So I tried to push myself pretty hard in the cold last week and it continued to get better and better each day.”
The hard part is matching what he did last season, the most anyone had won on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods won seven times in 2007.
Missing from Pebble Beach is Xander Schauffele, the PGA and British Open champion who is resting a rib injury. But the field is as stacked as it has been all year, and for the first time includes golf’s most dominant player.
“It’s a little weird making it this late in the year,” he said. “But yeah, good to be back.”