Scottie Scheffler’s $5,000,000 earning caddie details leaving a LIV Golf veteran’s side
Scottie Scheffler's caddie, Ted Scott, recently revealed how he ended up signing with the World No. 1 after leaving LIV Golf veteran Bubba Watson. Scott had a successful tenure with Watson, winning two Majors and 15 PGA Tour events. They worked together for around 15 years, but their partnership came to an end after they mutually decided to part ways.
Ted Scott recently appeared on an episode of Golf's Subpar podcast and detailed how, following his split from Watson, he started working with Scottie Scheffler. The PGA Tour caddie revealed that after parting ways with Watson, he was considering retirement from golf, but one of his friends told him that he would get a call from a "good player" (Scheffler), encouraging him to think about caddying for him.
"I actually was trying to retire for the third time from caddying, and I got another phone call, so it just keeps coming back to me. I got a preemptive phone call from another friend who said, 'Hey, you're about to receive a phone call from a really good player, but more importantly, he's a better person, and I really think you ought to consider it,'" Scott said (at (13:04)
Scott had an opportunity to play with Scottie Scheffler while he was caddying for Watson during a PGA Tour event, and they actually played a practice round together. However, the veteran caddie acknowledged that he didn’t know much about Scheffler's game before joining him.
"We were Scottie's partner at the Zurich Classic. So, I had only been around him for that week, and I think we played one practice round with him at Harding Park. So, I knew he was a really nice guy, but I didn't know how good of a player he was. I didn't, you know, really follow his junior career or college career, any of that, but I took the word of my buddy that called me and said, 'Hey, this dude's special, you know, I'm telling you he's really good,'" he contiued.
So, when Scheffler called Scott, he asked the golfer a few questions and then discussed the opportunity with his family.
"So, when he called me, I had a few questions for him, and I liked the way that he answered it. Then I just told my family, I said, 'Look, we're going to pray about it because I don't know if I'm supposed to be caddying.' But apparently, they had been calling agents trying to get me back on the road. So, it was weird—my family was tired of me already. They're like, 'You've been home for two weeks; we need to find you a job, Pro,'" Scott concluded.
Just two weeks after he received the call from Scheffler, Scott accepted the offer and began working together before 2022, and they've enjoyed a successful partnership over the last two and a half years. They’ve won two Majors together, Scheffler reached World No. 1, and they also clinched the trophy at the 2024 Tour Championship, The Players Championship along with several other tournaments.
Why did Ted Scott and Bubba Watson split ways?
After working together for more than a decade, Bubba Watson and Ted Scott decided to part ways, which came as a shock to the golf world as the duo had a very successful partnership. Speaking to GOLF in 2022, the two-time Masters winner revealed the reason behind their split.
Watson acknowledged that he was struggling with injuries, which affected his game. So, he called his caddie, discussed his health issues with him, and they finally decided to part ways.
Speaking of his split with Scott, Watson said (via Golf.com):
"So I called him and told him. I said, look, man, I’m 43 years old. I don’t know what I’m going to do. My wrist is killing me. He is like he needs ten more years, and I gave him — I felt like a nice retirement package when we split up, but we split up mutually,” Watson recalled.
After the split, Watson started working with Gabe Sauer and later joined LIV Golf. Meanwhile, Scott remained on the PGA Tour, caddying for Scheffler.