Scheffler’s ‘class act’ gesture earns him a new admirer: his opponent

Nico Echavarria lost his Presidents Cup singles match to Scottie Scheffler, 2 and 1, but he finished the day with a new admirer — his opponent.

The 32-year-old Colombian was handed a matchup with the world No. 1 in one of the Presidents Cup’s 12 decisive singles matches. The Internationals entered Sunday’s singles with a three-point lead and needed five points to defeat the Americans. Echavarria was ranked 126th in Data Golf’s rankings; Scheffler was ranked first.

“It’s a little bit of David against Goliath,” Echavarria had said earlier in the week.

Scheffler took an early lead with a birdie on the par-4 second, but Echavarria answered with a birdie and won the par-5 third. Scheffler then made birdies on Nos. 5, 6 and 8 before extending his lead to four holes with another birdie at No. 10.

“He doesn’t make many mistakes,” Echavarria said afterward.

But a fan disrupted the 14th hole. As Echavarria prepared to hit his tee shot on the par 4, someone yelled, “Go Scottie!” The Colombian’s drive flew into the right rough, and he released his driver before looking toward the heckler.

Scheffler was angry, too. He walked across the tee box and said sharply, “There’s no place for that!”

Echavarria made a mess of the hole, knocking his third shot over the back of the green to about 32 feet from the pin. Scheffler had a tap-in par that almost certainly would have won the hole. Instead, he conceded Echavarria’s par, and the hole was halved.

“We have the No. 1 player in the world, who’s a class act,” Echavarria said. “I wasn’t expecting for him to give me that.”

Scheffler later said the gesture was not about trying to appear noble; he was simply upset with the fan.

“There’s just no place for that,” Scheffler said at the U.S. team’s Sunday evening press conference. “I was very frustrated. It was honestly a big distraction, I think for me, just because we compete and work so hard to put ourselves in these moments. When you have some fan who decides to insert himself into the tournament, you can say whatever you want to players, but I think there’s an amount of respect there. You should get about 30 seconds when you’re over the ball and hitting your shot or getting ready for your shot where fans are pretty silent.

“It just didn’t really sit well with me. He would never hit a shot as poorly as he hit off the 14th if there wasn’t a fan yelling in his swing. I don’t really want to talk about it all that much.”

Echavarria later cut the deficit with a chip-in on the 16th hole. After the shot, he put a finger to his lips and shushed the crowd.

“It’s just frustrating with the amount of things that they say to you, so when you can give one back to them, it feels really good,” he said. “Making that to keep the match going was very cool.”

The match did not last much longer. On the par-4 17th, Echavarria’s approach ran through the green, taking away his last realistic chance to come back.

Scheffler won, 2 and 1.

He also won a new fan.

“He’s just different,” Echavarria said. “Even how good he is, he’s a truly amazing guy.”