Chris Gotterup is a betting man, even though one of golf’s next big things isn’t cash, he’s checking the odds. No, no. That’s not allowed, after all.
But you know a winner when you see one.
Take last week, when he was paired with Scottie Scheffler in the first and second rounds of the WM Phoenix Open. After 18 holes, Scheffler was playing very Scheffler-like, but Gotterup understood where things stood: Day 2 of World No. 1 was only a hiccup – and the money couldn’t leave his wallet fast enough for the second round, as long as he could do such a thing.
“Everybody saw it here,” Gotterup said.
“If I could bet on golf, I’d put a lot of money on him to come out and play well on Friday.”
OK, OK, so you probably thought the same thing, and Scheffler finished eight strokes better. So what about this? If you really want to hear about the bet, and if you really want to peek under Gotterup’s Nike golf hat, he can tell you when his father promised to take him to Pebble Beach, the cathedral that hosts this week’s PGA Tour stop, but only when he breaks par — at that time, when he’s 14 or 9, out 2 or Gonder 13 at Rumson Country Club in New Jersey. (“I have a scorecard somewhere in my house. … My mom is like, put it in a frame.”)
And there is this:
Know that his Masters tour in a few months will be his first – but that is his choice. Gotterup has been invited to this tournament before.
And he just said, thank you, but no thank you.
You are a player. And he would go to play.
“I haven’t been invited to play, generally,” Gotterup said on Wednesday. “But I’d come down – one of my sponsors used to make me dinner every Wednesday before and they’d ask me if I wanted to come over on Thursday to watch.
“I don’t know, I feel like it’s going to hurt me – as one, I don’t really like watching other people play unless I’m not playing that week. It’s just me, I don’t know, I’m a weirdo that way. Like I wanted it to be, like it’s the hottest competition in the game and I don’t want to go play and be an actor.
“I was confident that I would be able to do it as a player. Now that I will, it will be more rewarding when I enter for the first time than as a fan.”
You will go as a favorite, too. Last year, he won the Genesis Scottish Open. This year, he won the Sony Open and the WM Phoenix Open. He combined the energy in the entire bag with a close touch. Those played well at Augusta National.
As does one’s self-esteem.
“It’s one of those tournaments where I think – like here it’s like I could tell you every hole on that course even if I didn’t step on it,” Gotterup said.
“So I’m happy to be out there and enjoy maybe one of these weeks off, enjoy, like getting, not angry, but like your fear is hopefully over and try to settle down when the tournament comes.
“Just talking like at Bridgestone, the things we did, talking to Freddie [Couples] and the Tiger [Woods] and Jason [Day] and all these guys love it, it’s the only tournament everyone talks about all the time. I don’t know, it’s just fun.”
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