The golf world is often stemmed from misunderstandings due to a communication gap. This happens especially between the players and entities widely associated with the game. Take the incident between Scottie Scheffler and Frankie Borrelli for instance. The misunderstanding began when Borrelli, one of the co-hosts of the Fore Play podcast, repeatedly sent Scheffler text messages but received no responses. Borrelli was under the impression that Scheffler might be avoiding him, leading to the belief that the golfer hated him.
The messages had been sent throughout 2022, and Borrelli openly joked about this assumption on the podcast, stating that he felt like Scheffler didn’t like him because of the lack of replies. But as it turns out, this was not the case. The World No. 1 has a rather solid reason to back up his case on this.
In one of the recent episodes of the Fore Play Golf, Frankie Borrelli said, “Here’s the thing, Scottie Scheffler does not hate me.” He went on adding how he went up to Scottie Scheffler and asked him, “Did you get a new number.” And he replied with an affirmative answer. He went on to add how he told him that he has been texting him for two years, congratulating him on Bennett Scheffler in May, for his Masters win in April, and also for him winning the gold in August. Scheffler asked him why he did not message him on Instagram, to which Borrelli said, “I thought you hated me.”
“I have been stressing myself about Scottie Scheffler hating me for some reason. I thought maybe I pissed him off doing something for two years,” said Borrelli worried. To which the host just said, “Just got a new phone number.”
🚨⛳️📲 BREAKING: Scottie Scheffler does not hate @FrankieBorrelli. He hasn’t been answering Frankie’s texts because he got a new number 😂
pic.twitter.com/sIfEZwbwF4— FORE PLAY TRACKER (@ForePlayTracker) November 27, 2024
This is not the first time changing numbers has caused such a big misunderstanding. This has earlier even led to trouble between players as well.
Rory McIlroy did not reply to Tiger Woods because he changed his phone number
Tiger Woods has been ever supportive of Rory McIlroy. He was among the only people who reached out to Rory McIlroy after he had a spat with Patrick Cantlay and Wyndham Clark at the 2023 Ryder Cup. Even when he lost to Bryson DeChambeau at the US Open, Woods had messaged him trying to make sure that he was okay. However, the Northern Irishman had no idea that he did. Well, in public he had mentioned the messages he received from Michael Jordan and Rafael Nadal. “MJ was maybe the first person to text me after I missed the putt on the 18th but both of them got in touch very, very quickly,” McIlroy told The Guardian. “They just told me to keep going. MJ reminded me of how many game-winning shots he missed. Nice.”
The reason he did not mention Woods was revealed later on during the presser of the 2024 Open Championship. When Tiger Woods shared how he had drafted a message to console Rory McIlroy and had waited for him to reply for a week, but he did not. Well, McIlroy did not get the message. “Full disclosure, I changed my number two days after the U.S. Open, so I didn’t get it until he told me about it today,” McIlroy said at his press conference. “I was like, ‘Oh, thanks very much.’ So I blanked Tiger Woods, which is probably not a good thing.” He said he surely would have replied had he not switched his numbers.
