Hello,

As you will quickly realize from my B-grade writing and mediocre takes, this is not Kyle Porter. My name is Garrett Andersson.

I am a retired caddie turned (oftentimes) idiotic entrepreneur. I live in North Carolina with my (Ludvig-loving) wife and 17-month-old girl. My latest project is a snail mail club for golf sickos called Dear Pards.

[Kyle here: Check out Dear Pards. Amazing project and worthy of your time and attention … OK back to my vacation].

I have had a few thoughts on Scottie since The Open ended. They popped back up when he once again finished runner up at the 3M last week (won by the man kid depicted in Jason’s awesome illustration above), and I’m excited to share them.

Name drops today: John McEnroe, Viktor Hovland, Seve, Miss America, Andrew Huberman, Stu Feiner, Barry Sanders, LeBron, Lucas Glover, Curt Schilling.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Today’s newsletter is presented by OMNI.

[Still Garrett here, for some reason Kyle trusts me enough to even write the sponsor spot!]

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to play OMNI Bedford Springs, a Ross-Tillinghast collab in south central PA.

When I got home, I had an argument with my (not pregnant) wife about naming our next kid Tilly. The highest praise I can give a golf course.

They also have twelve other courses across the country with greens that don’t have any signs of metal spike marks on them. 

People are also saying that the kid who won the 3M might start writing DOMNIATE on his glove going forward for activation purposes.

(nobody is saying this … but maybe they should be).

Alright, buckle up.

How I Relate to the Best Golfer on the Planet

Why? WHY!? How does that even happen?!

Those were the words–mixed in with a few expletives–that came out of my mouth at around 3:30 am last Wednesday as I tripped over a plastic burger toy before Viktor Hovland-ing my pinky toe into the corner of my bedframe. 

I was not in a Hawaii hotel room, nor was I on the way to play heavy metal music to my screaming 17-month-old daughter. I was simply trying to get her back to sleep.

There's an actual answer to the question I yelled at my sleeping spouse – the same question the No. 1 player in the world screamed to everyone on the 17th tee at Birkdale two Sundays ago. Though it was not one either of us wanted to hear.

You didn’t pick up the night before.

You didn’t aim far enough right.

You don’t have your contacts in.

Golf is an outdoor sport. 

The last time I saw Scottie Scheffler play golf in person, he shot 75 in front of six people.

It was the first round of the 2019 TPC Colorado Championship, in a tiny town 50 miles north of Denver. I was working my final professional event as a full-time caddie for Max Rottluff, and we were paired with Scottie for the first two rounds.

The future world No. 1 had just won his first event as a pro a few weeks earlier in Chicago, and was well on his way to locking up his Tour card. 

A slow start from the whole group turned what should have been a lovely morning walk at the feet of the Rockies into a miserable slog. Believe me when I say Scottie made John McEnroe seem like a stoic.

I spent most of that round walking with the other Scottie–the name of Scheffler’s caddie at the time–doing our best to avoid the steam coming off both of our players.

Max withdrew halfway through Friday's round with a "bad back." Scottie rallied to make the cut by one, I went to go see about a girl, and the rest is history. Max is a Cleek alternate, Scheffler is being talked about as an all-time great, and I’m married with a kid blogging about it. 

(I love you, Max).

Since getting his card, Scottie has spent a good deal of his professional career scratching the top of his neck in a press room, telling all of us that he does not play golf for trophies. He cares most about loving his wife, his boys, and his Savior.

So much so that to the general public he’s often perceived as … meh. 

He wears the same white hat every week. Hardly pumps a fist. Doesn’t care about rivalries. Doesn’t play for history. Doesn’t play to inspire the next generation. Oftentimes doesn’t even know the point, because one day he’s going to die and he’s not going to be anywhere near a golf course. 

When I say it like that, it sure doesn’t sound like someone who’d sell out his jersey white Nike dad hat at a PGA Superstore.

In fact, it sounds like the antithesis of the Seve-inspired murals that’ll be lining the European locker room at Adare next Fall.

Yet there are two things that the number one player on the planet does that, together, make him more relatable to me than any other athlete in the world:

1. Possesses a peace that surpasses understanding. 

2. Loses his mind for absolutely no reason.

Two things that seem to go together as well as navy pants with black shoes. Or … a Titleist hat and Malbon shirts.

Scottie’s now famous comments last year at Portrush were misunderstood by many. Which makes sense. His contented approach to success goes against how we want our superstars to act. The 2025 Masters is more exciting to watch because Rory ending a decade-long major drought–at least at the time–was everything to him. 

But if you watch Scottie’s oft-discussed full presser–which he encourages people like me to do before spilling 1500 words about him–I think he actually made a ton of sense. He followed up those comments with these comments two weeks ago, a few days before the Open at Birkdale:

Peace.

Not the thing Miss America says when asked what the world needs. The unexplainable sense of inner calm. Regardless of the number of Wiki greens or dollar bills racked up on a golf course. 

A highly credentialed neuroscientist/wellness bro–who I’m sure needs no introduction–recently said something that made me choke on my unprocessed kimchi Chick-Fil-A when I heard it.

It’s worth watching the 80-second clip, but he leads by saying he spent a bulk of his life resisting this feeling that there was a God, thinking it was incompatible with what it means to be a scientist. And then he says …

A bulk of Scottie’s life seems to be built on this contentment stemming from this peace he often talks about. His days at home consist of The Office, Chipotle, the Cowboys, and Stu Feiner.

Quote after quote from him and his peers backs this up. 

Scottie might not care about what comes with being the best golfer in the world. But he clearly cares about competing and the preparation it takes to do it at such a high level. 

KVV wrote a great piece ahead of the 2026 Masters profiling him. He mentions the sense of zen he feels from players during practice rounds vs. the oftentimes “manic energy” displayed during tournament rounds.  

So how does a person with such peace on Tuesday — 20 years earlier in his life than Huberman discovered it — go ballistic when a little white ball doesn’t go where he thinks it should on Thursday? It’s a fair question to ask, and something I ask myself often. 

The easiest answer I have is from a faith perspective that I share with Scheffler.

I believe golf is one of the best illustrations of what Christians call sanctification. It's a churchy word for a simple idea: from the moment we're born again until the day we die, we're slowly becoming more like Jesus, all while knowing we'll never fully get there in this life. 

It doesn’t justify our acts of rage. In fact, it oftentimes annoys us even more when we see the imperfect parts of ourselves yelling at the wind in Dublin, Ohio.

It’s frustrating. And I think it frustrates Scottie more than anyone else.

Hating to lose–while true–can’t be an excuse for yelling at a co-worker when trying to land a deal because I just care so much about winning. It irks me to no end, so much so that I oftentimes wonder if there is a career second act coming, where joy and peace flow more fluidly in my vocation.

I am not promoting, nor suggesting Scottie is going to pull a Barry Sanders and hang up his sticks when he’s 31 to go coach middle school pickleball. But in some ways, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me. I often wonder if Scheffler’s least favorite version of himself is the one that a bulk of the world sees?

If a hot mic was on me for an entire workday and I had to get on national TV the moment I pulled in my driveway and answer only for the shits and damns I gave people throughout my day, it’d make my hairline look a lot like LeBron’s too.

Scottie Scheffler is not the same golfer he was seven years ago when he won $4,057 for a T29 finish at a KFT event in Berthoud, CO. More people beat him that week than in the last eight majors combined. In 615 rounds since that day, he has shot worse than 75 just once.  (77 in the final round of the 2020 Memorial)

It's also safe to say he's not the same person. Beyond being the best at a game played by over 40 million people worldwide, he now has more than a few extra commas in his bank account. He's a husband and father of two boys. And while his bouts of rage on the golf course still exist, they are far from what they once were.

Is he perfect? No. He’s the first to say it. But peace doesn’t make us perfect. It slowly perfects us. Renewing us day by day–sometimes in a non-linear manner–into better husbands, fathers, golfers, and friends.

I limped across the house looking like a cross between Lucas Glover and Curt Schilling. (Kidding, only serial killers sleep in socks.)

I plopped down on an off-white glider, thinking about a life with nine toes, humming the only tune that has worked at quieting my daughter amidst a month of midnight wake-ups. 

Nothing I did or said minutes prior made me worthy enough for the free drop from a lost ball she gave me as she slowly started snoring in my arms. Yet here I was. Thankful that the giver of peace is greater than anything I can do to deserve it.

I got peace like a river,
I got peace like a river.
I got peace like a river, in my soul.

Thank you for showing up for the substitute teacher. Hopefully the movie I put on kept the class entertained while Kyle sweats through buckets of Coors Light and Koivun in Colorado.