Scottie Scheffler was ticked off.
The unaffected, unflappable guy with the aw-shucks, crooked smile — who’s ranked No. 1 in the world — is the defending Masters champion and a six-time winner in the past 14 months. And his mood was everything you never thought you’d see him be: angry.
As in steaming-mad, red-eyed angry.
Scheffler had become unglued on the golf course and wondered aloud what the hell was wrong and why this kept happening to him.
He was well inside the stroke-play cutline at the 2017 U.S. Amateur at Riviera Country Club, seemingly in a comfortable position to qualify for the match-play round, and he spit the bit. In his eyes, he choked, and it infuriated him.
Scheffler had followed his opening-round 69 with a second-round 75 and never made it to match play.
Scott Scheffler, the father of 26-year-old Scottie, recalled that seminal moment at Riviera six years ago like it was yesterday.
“He was trying to make the Walker Cup team at that U.S. Amateur, he was five shots inside the cut line and he wavered, goes to a playoff, he makes a [big] number and we’re walking down the fairway,’’ Scott Scheffler told The Post. “I’ll never forget it. He may, but I won’t forget it. What do you do as a dad? Here’s your kid who’s broken. We don’t know what to say.
“So, I walked up to him and put my arm around him and I said, ‘Scottie, I’m so proud of you.’ And he got so angry at me. He’s like, ‘What the bleep for? Did you see what I just did?’ ”
Scott Scheffler’s eyes were tearing up now as he recalled the moment.
“I said, ‘Scott, I am so proud of the way you handled that adversity,’ ” the elder Scheffler went on. “He said, ‘Dad, I ruined it.’ Then he says, ‘Dad, this keeps happening. Why does it keep happening?’ I said, ‘It’s just golf. I don’t know if you realize it, but I think you’re a lot closer to the solution now.’
