A Dirk mention? In 2025?
With the release of Happy Gilmore 2, the press tour has been in full effect. The movie’s trailer features a lot of high-level cameos, none bigger than golf’s number one player, and newly-crowned Champion Golfer of the Year, Scottie Scheffler. In a fun video with ESPN, Scheffler was asked a myriad of questions in a short amount of time, with the majority of the answers being throwaways. The final question, however, lit up my face like the Dallas skyline. He was asked to name an athlete that he would switch places with in their prime, noting that it could be anyone from any time. Scheffler first said he “loves basketball” and would “love to try and play in the NBA” before revealing that if he could, he would switch places with Dirk Nowitzki. He also noted that Dirk is “the man.”
Nowitzki and Dallas are largely synonymous, and this is yet another example of how much he means to the fan base, which includes a strangely large number of golfers (Jordan Spieth, Will Zalatoris, among others). It is one thing when you or I say we’d trade places with Dirk; that is a no-brainer. But for the best golfer since Tiger Woods to put Nowitzki on a pedestal like this is pretty cool. The world number one is a basketball fan just like the rest of us, and a Dallas kid who grew up idolizing Nowitzki in the same way millions of kids in DFW did.
Scheffler’s choice told us that Dirk still matters. There has been a lot of disregard for Nowitzki in the last five months in favor of the laundry on the floor and the suits in the office. To have one of the Mavericks’ most high-profile fans acknowledge Dirk’s greatness is a breath of fresh air. Whether the current regime thinks so or not, Nowitzki remains the guy. If you ask 100 people in Dallas the same question, 99 of them would agree with Scheffler.
Nowitzki had a lot of nicknames in his playing days: Dirty, The Dunking Deutschman, Tall Baller from the G, to name a few. But now he’s got one more (and a personal favorite), courtesy of the best golfer on the planet: your favorite athlete’s favorite athlete.