Golf star Min Woo Lee has defended Scottie Scheffler after the two-time Masters champion was involved in a heated exchange with his caddie back in June. Scheffler finished tied-12th at Muirfield earlier in the summer, but caught plenty of attention during the opening round in Ohio.
Incident at the Memorial Tournament
During the opening round in Dublin, Scheffler hit one of his shots on the 16th hole into the water and was visibly frustrated as he spoke to his caddie, Ted Scott, as he walked towards the drop zone. Audio picked up from the microphone showed Scheffler having a heated exchange with Scott as he walked down the fairway, with the four-time major winner being the subject of criticism ever since.
Lee's defence
However, Lee has leapt to the defence of Scheffler, explaining why the 30-year-old may have reacted the way he did in that moment at the Memorial tournament.
"First of all, I think that was a tough moment," Lee said on the Life on Tour podcast. "I know he's not like that all the time. It was just a really tough day at Memorial, and Memorial's one of the toughest — I think it's the toughest golf course outside of the majors. So blow-ups happen, and it just looked bad."
Lee added: "I don't think social media and the audience know, 'Is this how he treats his caddie?' I think a lot of players do that, and it's just unlucky that the microphone was right there taking it all in."
"As an audience, you'd like that, you'd want to listen to all that, but as a player and colleague, I wouldn't want a mic that close to me, just because stuff like that can happen. He's one of the best players in the world and he's saying, 'How can the wind be there and not there?'"
"I think caddies are very, very strong-skinned, and they've gone through a lot. Sometimes we give them slack and they just have to brush it off. Sometimes they want to yell back at us, but it's a tough situation. I'm sure a lot of my caddies have wanted to shout back at me."
Scheffler's response
Scheffler was asked about the moment on the 16th hole at Muirfield, where he also reflected on his opening round in Ohio.
"That's just another really good iron shot, and the wind switched from down off the right to pretty significantly in off the right," Scheffler said after his first round on June 4. "If it's down off the right, that ball's probably where I hit my wedge shot to. So just don't really know what I'm supposed to do there outside of trying to hit a good shot, and then it's frustrating when it doesn't work out, especially when it doesn't work out in that direction.
"I would rather get gusted in off the left, not in off the right there. All you can do is just try to hit good shots. It can be very frustrating sometimes when you feel like you're hitting good shots and then you're going to the drop zone."
