The Scottish Open looks set to pay the price for Scottie Scheffler’s shocking performance here at the 124th US Open, with the world No 1 ready to take the week off before the majors in the future.
Scheffler came into this tournament as the 3/1 favourite, the narrrowest odds for a golfer in America’s national championship since Tiger Woods 15 years ago.
Yet after recording five victories in his previous eight events – including the Masters in April – Scheffler, 27, only scraped inside the cut by a shot and could not make any headway in the third round with a 71 leaving him on six-over and a long way out of the frame.
Scheffler, who won last Sunday at the Memorial tournament, is at a loss to understand his sudden decline in form. The Texan has not finished outside the top 20 in 10 months and in those 16 events has only finished out of the top 10 on two occasions in a staggering run of consistency.
By his own astonishing standards, this peerless ball-striker’s tie for eighth at last month’s US PGA was not what he was expecting, although at least he had the wild distraction of being erroneously arrested for assaulting a police office in a traffic incident on the morning of the second round at Valhalla.
There has been no such external distress here in North Carolina, but he has still found himself mysteriously handcuffed at one of his country’s most famous venues. Scheffler was asked if tiredness might be to blame.
“There’s definitely an aspect of [tiredness], and that’s something that I’ll look at in my preparations,” Scheffler said. “I think going forward that’s something I’m really going to take a harder look at, the prep for the majors.
“Augusta is one that I’ve good prep for, figured out I don’t like playing the week before that one and maybe I’ll adopt more of that strategy. Because there definitely was a fatigue aspect, but I was ready to play. I talk about a lot preparing to play, maybe this week stepping up on Thursday I wasn’t as prepared as I could.”
That sounds ominous for the Renaissance Club, host of the tournament immediately preceding next month’s Open. Scheffler was set to be one of the big draws at the East Lothian layout next month as the £7 million event desperately fights for exposure in the same week as the final week of the Euros and the second week of Wimbledon.
He has played in the Scottish Open for the past three years – finishing third behind Rory McIlroy last year – but despite the test providing links preparation, Scheffler will probably opt to travel across a few days later and acclimatise himself to Royal Troon on that weekend before the crowds arrive. “I’ll sit down and think about what went wrong the last few days, get it figured out,” he said.
“I think going into the majors, especially the ones we know are going to be really challenging, it may be in my best interest not to play the week before.”
Unlike many of his rivals, Scheffler did not make a reconnaissance trip to Pinehurst No 2 in the weeks before and, with Troon also possessing its own quirks, it would make sense to conduct a proper scouting trip. There is also his month-old baby boy and a packed summer schedule to consider.
Telegraph Sport understands that he was considering skipping the Scottish anyway, because with only a week between The Open and the Olympic competition in Paris, and then a week off before three-week end-of-season PGA Tour FedEx play-offs begin, his time is at a premium.
Last week, at Muirfield Village, he was asked about his calendar and practically let the cat out of the tartan bag. “I typically played the Scottish before The Open Championship,” he said, with the past tense not going unnoticed. He was then told by the interviewer, ‘yeah but that’s different’. To which Scheffler replied: “Is it?”
As the Scottish Open has controversially not been elevated to “Signature Event” status by the PGA Tour – which has co-sanctioned the tournament for the last two editions – Scheffler is not obliged to appear. That is another gripe the DP World Tour might have with its “strategic alliance” partners as the circuit continues to be cut out of the peace negotiations with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which bankrolls LIV.
Furthermore, Scheffler’s only top 30 at the Open is a tie for eighth, making it quite easily his poorest major in terms of results. Everything points to Scheffler – the player with the largest cushion at the top of the rankings since Woods in his pomp – sadly skipping the Renaissance.
As it was, if Scheffler’s putter had obliged on Saturday, he could have forced himself into some sort of contention. From the 10th, he hit four successive approach shots to within nine feet, but converted only one of these birdie chances. He uncharacteristically threw his putter on Friday and his frustration was obvious as he picked up his fifth bogey of the day on the 15th. Scheffler’s birdie on the eight was his first in 26 holes and that is the longest stretch of his career so far.
If it was any consolation, then so many of the chasing pack fared even worse. England’s Matt Fitzpatrick had to get up and down on the 18th to break 80 – his nine-over 79 taking the 2022 US Open champion to 14-over – and Francesco Molanari – the Italian who sensationally made a hole-in-one on his last hole on Friday to make the cut – shot a 77 to fall back to 12-over.
Source Agencies
