MEMPHIS — Scottie Scheffler, who is quite legitimately one of the nicest men in professional golf, has a bit of a mean streak. 

A highly competitive dude, he harbors no compunction about squashing his opponents like a bug. But if an actual bug gets in his way, he shows his soft side.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by a ruthless margin, Scheffler seems poised to inflict further misery on his peers after shooting a tidy 

but not especially pleasing five-under 65 Friday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind. 

At nine-under 131, he trails co-leaders Hideki Matsuyama and Denny McCarthy by two strokes, 

which ain’t much ground to make up for a guy with six wins this year and is coming off a furious rally to win the gold medal in the Olympic golf competition.

“Yeah, I could have hit it closer [to the hole], could have hit a few more greens, could have made a few more putts,” said Scheffler, who wasn’t so much complaining about his bogey-free round as he was sounding like your typical weekend woulda-coulda-shoulda golfer. “Nice to have clean card, though.”

Scheffler, who leads the FedEx Cup standings for the third year in a row after the regular season, simply is not a nice person to be around with a club in his hand. He’s not as cutthroat as Tiger Woods, who gleefully enjoyed running up the score, as it were, during many of his record-tying 82 tour wins. But Scottie is equally determined to get the “W” and is none too pleased when the mission isn’t accomplished.

While playing for a second day in a row with Xander Schauffele, who is second in both the World Ranking and the FedEx Cup standings, Scheffler showed his softer side. Not to Schauffele, of course. Nope. Beat him by four shots.

While playing for a second day in a row with Xander Schauffele, who is second in both the World Ranking and the FedEx Cup standings, Scheffler showed his softer side. Not to Schauffele, of course. Nope. Beat him by four shots.

“It was some sort of bug,” he said, “but I don’t know exactly what it was, but it had wings, so I was able to grab it and just kind of move it.

“You seemed entertained by it,” asked a questioner, clearly intrigued. He wasn’t alone. This thing now had legs. We’re talking about the story here.

“It was entertaining because I grabbed both of its wings very gently,” Scheffler said. “I was able to grab it off the ball, and it was trying to flutter as I had it by its wings so you could kind of feel it moving. I just wanted to make sure I put it away from my ball so it wouldn’t be going back on my ball.”

So why not kill the thing? That would stop it, too, no?

“I didn’t think I was going to be able to catch it, and then when I did, I was like, I’m not going to kill it now that I caught it,” he explained. “So I just kind of let it fly away.”

Quite the dog-and-butterfly kind of moment. Scheffler birdied the hole and the next one, too, which made three birdies in a row, and all of a sudden he was looking like the same big ol’ windshield barreling down golf’s highway getting ready to make his opponents go splat.

The point here is that Scottie Scheffler clearly has a soft side. It’s just rare to see it on a golf course.

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Source: USA Today