NORTON, Mass. — PGA Tour rookie Scottie Scheffler‘s wild week took another turn Sunday in the final round of The Northern Trust, when his caddie, Scott McGuinness, went down in the ninth fairway with a leg injury and had to be carted off the golf course.
Eric Ledbetter, one of the assistant golf professionals at TPC Boston, was soon handed the caddie bib and took over on the bag on a day when temperatures hovered in the high 80s. Ledbetter, wearing pants while the rest of the caddies had on shorts, grabbed a bottle of water and headed off to join Scheffler on the 10th tee.
Scheffler said he thinks McGuinness will be OK.
“He said he’ll know more in the morning,” Scheffler said. ” … It depends what it looks like and feels in the morning. We’ll see. I don’t know what to think right now. Hopefully he’ll be able to go next week, but I’ll do some preparations tonight just in case he can’t, so I’ll figure something out.”
It became clear that McGuinness was struggling as the second-to-last group of the day approached the ninth green. McGuinness was hobbling before eventually sitting down in the fairway. Scheffler and playing partner Louis Oosthuizen finished the hole while medical staff checked on McGuinness.
“We’re walking up to the green on 9, and it’s kind of a little blind shot, 30 yards to the pin, and we’re both curious where the ball is,” Scheffler said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s here.’ And as I say that, he jumps to see where the ball is, and immediately he goes down. And luckily it’s high up on the calf; it wasn’t his Achilles. At first, he said he heard something pop, so mind starts to wander to dangerous places. But hopefully he’ll be all right.”
McGuinness is expected to be reevaluated on Monday.
Oosthuizen’s caddie, Phil Lowe, grabbed both golf bags and carried them to the 10th tee until Ledbetter took over. Scheffler made bogey at the 10th before settling in with consecutive pars at Nos. 11 and 12 and a birdie at the 13th. He finished tied for fourth at 17 under.
It has been far from boring for the 24-year-old Scheffler since he arrived on site this week. On Friday, he became the 11th player in history — and second youngest — to shoot 59 or better on the PGA Tour. He said he spent most of Friday and Saturday checking text messages.
“Got a few hundred,” he said.
He followed that with an even-par 71 on Saturday, falling off the hot pace set by eventual winner Dustin Johnson.