It was another under-par round for Scottie Scheffler.
He played flawless at the Memorial on Thursday and would have scored much lower than the 5-under 67 he finished with.
Scheffler missed birdie chances on the first few holes, then made a careless error on the par-5 fifth hole, resulting in a bogey. But as Scheffler later explained, there was a big patch of mud to the right of his ball on the fifth fairway, causing his approach shot to go 40 yards left.
“There’s mud on the ball so you have no control over where the ball goes,” Scheffler explained.
“I felt like I did my best to get it somewhere, but yeah, you can’t control that.”
But Scheffler, rightly so, didn’t let it bother him and acted like the best player in the world, scoring four more birdies on the back nine.
“The greens and fairways were a little soft this morning, which allowed me to put up some good scores,” Scheffler said.
“I felt like I hit a lot of quality shots today, I hit the ball really well and made some putts, so overall I’m pretty happy with my round today.”
His most impressive birdie of the day came on the final hole, the difficult par-4 18th.
The 18th hole ranked as the toughest on Thursday, 0.36 strokes above par. There were just nine birdies and eight double bogeys or worse. France’s Victor Perez ended a promising round with a triple-double after a comedy of errors on the elevated putting surface.
Yet Scheffler pulled it off with ease. He hit his best tee shot of the day down the middle of the fairway with just 138 yards remaining on the 478-yard par 4.
He then I stuck a wedge into the 18-inch He calmly tapped in for his sixth birdie of the day, briefly putting him in sole possession of first place.
“I feel like I always try to be as patient as possible,” Scheffler explained.
“I think I’m always trying to plan my direction on the golf course, whether my score is really low or around par.”
Scheffler enters Friday’s round one stroke behind Adam Hadwin, but no one would be surprised if Scheffler takes sole possession of the lead after the second round. Scheffler is playing in a league of his own, and no one is particularly close to Scheffler, much like Jack Nicklaus was in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.
