It’s not long after you walk in “The Dirty Meadow” – more on that later – that you realize it’s a golf-friendly house. Maybe 5-10 seconds.
“The hitting net in the living room now is a dead giveaway,” said Charlie Saxon.
The house in Dallas on Clover Meadow (hence the name, and because, why not?) is home to Saxon and his former Oklahoma Sooner teammates Max McGreevy and Grant Hirschman, as well as former Texas standout Scottie Scheffler. Former Drake University players Will McDonald and Drew Ison also live there.
With Scheffler on the PGA Tour and Saxon, McGreevy and Hirschman on the Korn Ferry Tour, the Dirty Meadow just might be the most talented golf house in America.
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Scheffler led last season’s Korn Ferry Tour Finals points list and the overall season points list, earning his PGA Tour card for the 2020 season and 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year honors. Saxon played his senior year at Oklahoma with McGreevy and Hirschman in 2014-15. The latter two went on to win the NCAA Championship with the Sooners in 2017.
The Dirty Meadow
So why Dallas? Depends who you ask.
Scheffler says it’s because the Sooners just couldn’t handle Oklahoma anymore. The Oklahoma boys disagree. Dallas is a bit warmer in the winter, and flying out of Oklahoma City meant a lot of connections through Dallas anyway.
It all started when Scheffler and Hirschman graduated in 2018. The two had talked about moving to Dallas for a couple months. As Hirschman remembers, Scheffler didn’t respond for four months (if you ask Scheffler, Hirschman forgot about him and only texted him once).
Hirschman then reached out to Saxon and McGreevy, as well as McDonald and Ison. With half the group on the road playing golf, McGreevy and Ison did most of the house hunting. Scheffler got back in the picture and the house was theirs on May 1, 2019. It wasn’t until late last fall that the entire group was together under one roof. Even then Scheffler was still gone a lot on Tour. The group doesn’t even have a picture of the four of them all together.
Six people in one house can be a lot to handle, not to mention six fiercely-competitive professionals all in their 20s. That said, the group doesn’t get in many big fights, just small minute-long spats where they soon end up laughing.
McGreevy said the most difficult part of being quarantined together is they don’t really have a getaway, other than the golf course. In fact, they’re even worse when they’re together at the course.
“Most of our arguments occur when the four of us go play,” explained Hirschman. “We play so slow because we sit there and argue on the green and then we argue on the tee box and before we know it we’re holding up the entire golf course and we’re most likely the four best players on the golf course.”
The house agreed Scheffler was the one who talks the most trash on the course, with McGreevy adding “he’s probably made four birdies in a row, so it’s okay, but he likes to dig.”
Off the course, the guys are just as competitive. During their time in quarantine they’ve started playing board games. One game in particular, Sequence, gets rather heated. Especially with a little action. They might be professional athletes, but the pot isn’t anything Michael Jordan Last Dance-esque.
“That doesn’t fit the Korn Ferry Tour salary,” joked Saxon.
Life together on tour
While the comment was made in jest, it’s true at the same time. The life of a professional athlete isn’t always a glamorous one, especially for a young golfer trying to make his way up the ranks. It’s normally a long season on the Korn Ferry Tour, traveling week after week with less-than-stellar accommodations to small cities across the country, rarely getting to be home.
“It’s been nice to be at home, and even though being on the road is difficult at times, we all love it,” said Saxon. “We love the competition and the grind and I know we’re all missing it.”
“The biggest benefit is just picking each other’s brains,” explained Hirschman. “We’ve all been through quite a bit and had our own personal experiences with golf and we can learn a lot from each other.”
“On the road if you’re struggling it’s good to have buddies to bounce thoughts and feelings off of,” added Saxon.
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