Scottie Scheffler didn’t have any Xs and Os advice to offer Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell when they played nine holes together in the 3M Open pro-am last month, although the World No. 1 did offer a helpful tip for O’Connell’s golf game.
O’Connell recently sat down with host Kevin Clark for Clark’s This Is Football show, and a part of the conversation was about the coach’s offseason pro-am round with the four-time major champion.
“It was better than you could imagine, and it was a 6:40 a.m. tee time on a Wednesday after the Open Championship, so he very easily could have shown up and hit some golf balls, but the best part about it was he was fantastic,” O’Connell told Clark. “Obviously he’s the best in the world, but an even better guy. Fun to hang out with, engaging with the group, talking every time anybody hit a good shot — which was every time for him but for some of us it was few and far between. He was just so much fun to play with.”
Scheffler, speaking to the media after that pro-am round, had similar things to say about O’Connell.
“You can tell why he’s such a good coach, seemed very smart,” Scheffler said. “I got to ask him a few questions and he told me some stuff. It was definitely very fun for me to be able to spend some time with him. I love the NFL and I’m fascinated by what they’re able to do, especially the head coach.”
Scheffler even offered some advice for the coach’s game, which falls in-line with the thinking of the younger, bomb-and-gauge generation. (And might be good advice for yourself as well.)
“Golf-wise, you think, Oh, I’m going to be responsible, I’m hitting some 3-woods off some tees,” O’Connell said. “And he walked up to me on the 3rd tee and he said, ‘What are you doing? Hit your driver, hit it as far as you can and we’ll go find it.’ And it was amazing, and I was like, Oh, that makes sense, and I started playing OK.”
Added Scheffler: “As a football coach you don’t get too much time to be playing golf. He actually moved it pretty well and hit some really nice shots.”
The only bad news about this budding friendship?
“He’s a Cowboys fan,” O’Connell said, “but Minnesota gave him some love for that week for sure.”
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