Beau Hossler, Scottie Scheffler recount almost fighting in college

HOUSTON — The seriousness of the encounter depends on who tells the story.

Scottie Scheffler and Beau Hossler almost came to blows on the golf course when they were teammates in college. On a podcast appearance a couple months ago, Longhorns’ coach John Fields said it would’ve been a “battle of the titans.”

Scheffler is now the No. 1 golfer in the world and sits at 5-under 65 and T-2 after the morning wave of the 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course. Hossler, who is searching for his first Tour victory, opened with a 4-under performance.

Following their rounds, they both recalled the events of that day, and Hossler said his former coach may have deflated the situation.

In the spring of 2015, Texas was playing at a one-day event in Lubbock, with then-junior Hossler and freshman Scheffler paired together for the morning and afternoon sessions.

“We were playing this mess-around tournament before the regional,” Hossler said. “Basically, we were both playing a match. I wasn’t playing him, I was playing a New Mexico kid and he was playing a New Mexico kid. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lubbock, but it’s very, very, very windy.

“I hit one on the water on 18, which was the ninth hole. You couldn’t even — it was so windy you couldn’t hear each other from however far apart, so
I didn’t even like announce what ball I was playing but I just hit. Two holes later, No. 2 is kind of this blind par-5 I think. We both hit it down the middle and whatever. I walked past the first ball, I walked to the second ball, it’s 10 yards in front. He hits the ball in the back and then I realized that that was not my ball that I was standing next to. We had different markings, but we both were playing a Titleist whatever, 3 with a Longhorn on it. One had a marking, and mine didn’t.”

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Added Fields on the podcast: “You would’ve thought Mount Vesuvius just went off, like we had a volcano 15 yards below us. Scheffler got so mad when he figured out that he’d hit the wrong ball, he ran up to the green, 260 yards on a dead sprint, picked up the ball, ran back, and threw it at Beau’s feet. Beau goes ahead and hits the right shot, and Scottie has lost the hole now. He’d just lost a hole, but it’s killing him. And now, they’re jawing against each other on the way up (to the green), and finally on the next hole, on the par-3, I told Beau, ‘We are not going another…