Scottie Scheffler adds more details about hand injury, ‘not at all concerned’ about impact

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Scottie Scheffler added more details Tuesday to what happened during his Christmas-dinner-gone-awry, saying that he was lucky he didn’t suffer an even more serious hand injury when a wine glass shattered in his palm.

Scheffler is making his season debut about a month later than anticipated, after he needed surgery on his right hand following a freak accident while making homemade ravioli on Christmas.

Scheffler said Tuesday at Pebble Beach that he was at a rental house without the proper cooking utensils and instead tried to use a wine glass to cut the dough.

“I had my hand on top of it and it broke. The stem kind of got me in the hand,” he said. “It’s one of those deals where, I can’t live in a bubble; I’ve got to live my life and accidents happen. It could have been a lot worse. I actually talked to somebody who did the exact same thing, and the stem went straight through their hand. It’s one of those deals where immediately after it happened, I was mad at myself because I was like, Gosh, that’s so stupid. But you just don’t think about it when you’re in the moment.”

Scheffler said a friend helped him stop the bleeding within the first 15 minutes, but he later was referred for surgery.

Scheffler missed the season-opening Sentry and the American Express, and last week, during a conference call, he said he was “unsure” for Pebble Beach because he didn’t want to rush his return. But he felt confident in coming back this week after getting the all-clear from his doctors and ramping up his ball count on the range, practicing for longer periods, even in the cold, to make sure he could withstand the pounding.

“I wanted to push myself pretty hard at home to make sure I wouldn’t have a flareup here on the road,” he said. “I tried to work out some of that soreness and the scar tissue and stuff that goes in there after surgery. It continued to get better and better each day. So I figured I might as well come back out and start playing.”

Scheffler, who has just a small piece of nude tape over the area, said that he was “not at all” concerned that the issue could linger.

It remains to be seen how the injury could affect his pre-Masters schedule. Each of the past three years, Scheffler has played at least seven times ahead of the year’s first major. If he plays his usual schedule, starting now, he would make only six appearances before his title defense at the Masters.

“Just because I missed two, I don’t want to change the flow and the cadence to my schedule,” he said. “If I feel like I want to add one to get some extra reps in, then I will.”

But for now, he’s just eager to get started in what is his first official Tour event since he captured the FedExCup last fall.

Count Rory McIlroy among those who was glad to see Scheffler back in the field, even if he wondered how the injury even happened.

“I think he made enough money to hire a chef,” McIlroy said. “It’s like, Why are you cooking yourself?”

Informed of this later in the day, Scheffler smiled.

“I’ve got a chef – her name’s Meredith,” he said. “She’s pretty cute.”