Getty Image / Tracy Wilcox
Scottie Scheffler, the best golfer in the world, joins Garrick Higgo on the DP World Tour to attempt and make par on a 1,500 yard ‘par-8’ hole at The Renaissance Club in Aberdeen, Scotland.
‘Par-8’ is in brackets there because for this challenge they actually combine three holes and play from the 10th tee to the 13th green. This is a twist on the PGA Tour’s ‘Name Your Par Challenge’ that has made appearances on the PGA Tour’s YouTube channel over the years.
Scottie hits the ball pretty long but this is a links course and the fairways at The Renaissance Club are tight. The knee-high grass outside of the fairways is punishing. But this is the best golfer in the world we’re talking about so I fully expected him to eagle this challenge. I was surprised to see Scottie Scheffler have to sweat it out:
Scheffler is averaging 298.9 yards off the tee this season and his stock yardages are pretty wild, at least compared to 99.9% of people in the golf world. He’s hitting his 3-wood 265 and that 4-iron he pulled out that ended up in trouble, his stock yardage for that club is 265-yards.
I was semi-surprised we only got to see one driver off the deck in this par-8 challenge. One can’t help but wonder what this challenge would look like with multiple shots at it.
But at the end of the day, they both made par. As Scottie pointed out, it might be the first legitimate (non-ironic) fist pump for scoring an 8 in competitive golf history.
This week, Scottie’s teeing it up at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town in Hilton Head. He birdied his second hole but recorded a double bogey on the third. It is NOT often you see the man who leads all golfers in Strokes Gained make a double bogey.
Here is a classic example of the original ‘Name Your Par Challenge’ from the PGA Tour’s YouTube. They also go with a ‘Par 8’ in this challenge:
These guys are good.