"I think I screamed"- Scottie Scheffler made son Bennett cry after winning the 2024 FedEx Cup

Scottie Scheffler's son, who was born just a few months ago, was at the Tour Championship where his father lifted the season-long trophy. The golfer usually celebrates with Bennett, but this time, his son burst into tears.

Scheffler has cried after winning tournaments, but his son's tears weren't of joy. The American golfer believes he accidentally frightened his son. He said:

"He usually likes when I lift him above my head, but I think I screamed when I did it. I was a little excited."

Scheffler has worked all season for this. All the tournaments he won or did well in put him in pole position coming into the final event of the year, and he earned a four-stroke win as a result. Understandably, he was emotional when he finally did it, but it left his son crying because of a little too much excitement.

The 28-year-old golfer began the tournament with a -10 on the scoreboard. Over the course of the four rounds, Scheffler would shave off 20 more strokes, including four more in Sunday's finale. It led him to a win over Collin Morikawa in the Tour Championship.

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Would Scottie Scheffler have won without starting -10 at the Tour Championship?

The idea behind staggering scores at the Tour Championship is that certain golfers started with an advantage. Since Scottie Scheffler was first in FedEx Cup points, he started with the lowest score. As it turns out, that's largely why he won.

It's a fallacy to assume everything would have happened the same way had Scheffler begun at even par like in most tournaments. The two-time Masters winner might've approached things differently.

Scottie Scheffler started -10 at the Tour Championship (Imagn)

However, if the starting strokes were removed, he might not have won or even finished as the runner-up. The winner might have been Collin Morikawa, who shot -22 after starting four under.

Behind him would have been Sahith Theegala, who shot 21 under. Scheffler's -20 would have been enough for third place, though. Here's how the leaderboard would have looked per the PGA Tour:

Placement	Golfer	Round Scores	Relation to Par
1	Collin Morikawa	66-63-67-66	-22
2	Sahith Theegala	67-66-66-64	-21
3	Scottie Scheffler	65-66-66-67	-20
4	Russell Henley	67-71-67-62	-17
5	Adam Scott	66-67-68-67	-16
6	Sunjae Im	69-68-68-64	-15
7	Justin Thomas	66-69-70-65	-14
T8	Wyndham Clark	67-67-68-69	-13
T8	Taylor Pendrith	66-69-70-66	-13
T8	Viktor Hovland	69-71-65-66	-13
T8	Shane Lowry	69-69-65-68	-13
12	Rory McIlroy	69-69-68-66	-12
T13	Xander Schauffele	70-64-71-68	-11
T13	Sam Burns	67-68-68-70	-11
15	Matthieu Pavon	67-69-71-67	-10
T16	Hideki Matsuyama	70-70-68-67	-9
T16	Robert MacIntyre	69-71-71-64	-9
T16	Tommy Fleetwood	70-67-71-67	-9
T19	Patrick Cantlay	69-70-71-67	-7
T19	Ludvig Åberg	71-68-68-70	-7
T21	Byeong Hun An	69-71-69-69	-6
T21	Aaron Rai	66-70-72-70	-6
23	Billy Horschel	73-69-71-66	-5
T24	Akshay Bhatia	70-69-71-71	-3
T24	Tony Finau	70-66-74-71	-3
T24	Chris Kirk	70-74-67-70	-3
T27	Keegan Bradley	69-74-71-68	-2
T27	Sepp Straka	68-70-71-73	-2
T29	Christiaan Bezuidenhout	71-69-73-74	+3
T29	Tom Hoge	69-68-76-74	+3

Things would have looked very different without the staggered scoring, but this is why the season and the last two playoff tournaments (the FedEx St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship) matter so much. Fans did push back on the format, but it did result in a sensational win to cap off what was a historic season for Scottie Scheffler.