Scottie Scheffler added a few wrinkles to the menu for the Masters Club dinner he will host for past champions. And yes, there will be ravioli.
Ravioli is to blame for Scheffler still trying to reach full strength in his right hand. Glass punctured his palm when he used a wine glass to cut ravioli he was making for Christmas dinner, requiring surgery that kept him out of golf for a month.
He is serving cheeseburger sliders and firecracker shrimp again as appetizers, along with a choice of ribeye or redfish for the main course. He added Texas-style chili from the recipe of Randy Smith, his longtime swing coach.
As for the ravioli?
That's listed as “Papa Scheff's Meatball and Ravioli Bites.” That was a specialty of his father, Scott Scheffler, when Scottie was growing up.
“Any time he made them, we were all jacked up about it,” Scheffler said Wednesday during a conference call for the Masters. “Thought it would be fun to put them on the menu this year. And the raviolis were a nice touch, as well.”
Scheffler won't be making them, so all is well. Now it's a matter of getting the pieces together as he goes after a third Masters green jacket on April 10-13.
The Masters champion lost out on his typical start to the season by missing The Sentry at Kapalua and The American Express in the California desert while waiting for his hand to heal. While the hand is pain-free, Scheffler said it has taken time to regain full strength in it.
“I have absolutely no pain in the hand, but getting the full total range of motion out of my hand is a little bit of a different story just because you’re not able to use a certain muscle for almost a month’s time. ... You have to build back strength in that hand."
Scheffler has two top 10s in his five starts since returning at Pebble Beach, with his worst finish a tie for 25 in the Phoenix Open. He has one more tournament, the Houston Open next week, before heading to Augusta National.
“I think it would be silly to say that it didn’t set me back a little bit because I had to take a good amount of time off,” he said. "I’m a right-handed golfer. So any sort of injury you have to that hand, especially a surgical one, is going to have some sort of effect.
“But each day, my hand continues to improve,” he said. "My body continues to get back to where it needs to be, and I think my swing is coming around, as well. So I’m definitely excited about the improvements that I’m making.”
Scheffler is two weeks away from reaching 97 consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the world ranking. Tiger Woods is the only other player to hold the top spot longer. Woods had streaks of 264 weeks and 281 weeks.
Scheffler will try to join Woods, Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus as the only repeat champions at Augusta National.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
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