PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – It was telling that Scottie Scheffler, 12 shots off the lead, ended Friday with a fist pump.
Scheffler’s seven-footer for par dove right. He grabbed the edge. She fell to the bottom. And the world No 1, brimming with confidence and relief, went into the weekend some two shots behind leader Marco Penge, but with two quarters still to play.
The putt told a story about the day, about the course, about the man. But mostly it ended a strange afternoon that began with an even stranger question:
What the hell is Scottie Scheffler doing in last place?!
Scheffler’s journey to last place was more complicated than bad golf. When a rain-delayed day finally halted play midway through the first round, Scheffler was only halfway through his first 18 at Genesis. The horn sounded about half an hour after Scheffler bogeyed No. 8 and just minutes after bogeying No. 10. At the time, Scheffler was five over par, T71 in a field of 72, and remained there from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday. Scheffler is familiar with the feeling of sleeping on lead. This time he was sleeping on bullet proof. Not beating anyone. Strange.
I showed up eager to see Scheffler early Friday morning, curious to read if there was something seriously wrong with the world’s best golfer (unlikely) or if he was setting the stage for another exciting comeback (likely). The 7am start meant it was a sparse crowd, likely as much due to the cold as the early hour (42 degrees by my reckoning, probably colder in the damp darkness of the Riviera foothills, an absolute no-go for a fair weather fan). Scheffler wore a white Nike winter hat over a white Nike baseball cap. He was wearing a sweater, plus a vest which he took off and took off, as is his wont. It was a silent but pleasant scene; everyone in the coffee-drenched crowd seemed glad they’d decided to brave the elements. It’s special to watch the best golfer in the world play one of the best courses in the world alongside just a handful of tough players. Even if it is in last place. maybe ESPECIALLY if it is in the last place.
Scheffler was definitely on the property in the wee hours, warming up to his movement, his body, his mind. Comparatively, as someone who can barely function in the world, I misjudged the traffic, struggled to find the right parking lot, and barely made it onto the course by the time the game restarted.
When I first saw Scheffler, he had just hit the hardest shot on the property, the driver down the uncomfortable 12th, hitting one 315 yards to the left side of the fairway. He hit an uncharacteristic approach, missed the green left by a wedge, but hit an eight-footer for the first that turned out to be the start of something good. His next hole — broken driver, wedge to eight feet, first birdie of the week — moved him out of last place. I didn’t expect it to come back.
To prove my point, Scheffler holed a 20-footer for birdie on No. 14, too, to improve to three over par. And then he made a six-footer for the first on No. 15. He missed a few short putts on Thursday. This seemed to be a different guy.
Here’s what’s interesting: for the past three weeks, Thursday Scheffler THERE he was a different boy. A strong finish in this first round only served to highlight what had been his third consecutive mediocre opening session. Scheffler opened the WM Phoenix Open with a 73. He opened the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with a 72. Both efforts put him in the bottom half of those respective tables. And now he had only collected for 74 in a soft set-up at the Riviera?
It’s fun to watch Scheffler dominate, but this routine was perhaps the most interesting. It’s shocking to see Scheffler dig a hole Thursday — and it’s fascinating to watch him step up. If it weren’t at odds with his whole being, you’d know he was doing it on purpose, seeing the leaders off to a 10-stroke head start just to keep things interesting until the end. He roared back at TPC Scottsdale, 65-67-64, to finish one shot out of a playoff. He roared back at Pebble, 66-67-63, to finish two shots out of a playoff. On the night at Riviera, Scheffler was 11 shots off the lead and had no one to beat. He was still listed among the betting favourites.
As he looked to be closing in on another comeback, I studied Scheffler for some kind of narrative — something that seemed different Friday, something that had him playing the first 10 holes five-over par and the last eight two-under. I mostly came up empty. The difference I saw could be related to the weather and conditions, plus some easy shots and the extremes of a complex sport. He was less frustrated Friday, but that’s not a revelation; he didn’t miss five-footers. When Scheffler is on edge, you’ll know it. As he told a reporter at his press conference Tuesday, with a smile:
“You’ve played golf before, haven’t you? Yeah, it’s frustrating.”
But Scheffler still leaves you with a strong personal impression. His intensity is striking. This does not mean white knuckles and a clenched jaw. That means a 30-second huddle of full focus with caddy Ted Scott before choosing the right shot, even 10 shots off the lead. It means a full reset before the next shot. One thing he has borrowed from Tiger Woods is a commitment to commitment. There is no packaging option.
More Scheffler, pre-tournament: “I may not be the most outstanding player, but I feel like my mind has always been my biggest tool and I just try to use it to my advantage.”
This is clear.
After a short break, the trio of Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Si Woo Kim headed to the first group to begin the second round. When the world No. 1 took over No. 1, it looked like the comeback had officially begun.
But then it wasn’t. Scheffler birdied No. 2, bogeyed four straight pars, and then bogeyed No. 7. He was back at four par, exactly one player ahead (Garrick Higgo) and 11 shots behind his partner, Xander Schauffele.
This was when Scheffler seemed most desperate. His hat askew, he rushed to the top of the eighth and collapsed in a chair in disappointment. He then shot his ball left, repeating his lefty error that he struggled with all day. As the ball went up the line, Scheffler dropped his driver on a pass, apoplectic. That’s a hallmark of Scheffler: he’s so used to things going right that he can’t believe it when they don’t.
At that point it looked like Scheffler’s tour was over. But strangely, the hurdle seemed to underline how few hurdles there have been. Cutting has become easier, with more no-cut events and smaller fields. However, Scheffler hasn’t lost one since the summer of 2022. That’s nuts. What’s even more delicious is Scheffler’s streak of 19 consecutive finishes of T8 or better. We can take his ruthlessness for granted, but we shouldn’t.
The key to Scheffler’s ruthlessness is that it never take anything for granted. And so he found his way to No. 8 and then played essentially perfect golf for the next 40 minutes, keeping his approach to three feet on No. 9, making two bogeys on the par-4 10th and hitting a superb second on the par-5 11th. Bird, bird, bird. He still needed another one, but couldn’t find it until the par-5 17th, where he dropped a challenging mid-length, all-around putt to four feet and made the putt. And then came No. 18, where he just missed the green but chipped in before redeeming himself with a nervy par putt that bought him two more chances to climb the leaderboard.
The fist pump, plus the wild high five he shared with Scott, clearly showed a man not too cool to grind for a cut. All this to break the top 50 in a field of 72 players. All this to keep the generation alive. All this to climb from the basement to the first floor.
Scheffler made no excuses after the round. He seemed relieved to get away with par as he “tried to make a mess of a pretty basic chip there”. He admitted that he hasn’t completely broken the Riviera code.
“I don’t know, this place and I have a strange relationship. I feel like I can play so well here and I haven’t yet,” he said.
What about his Thursday woes? Scheffler mentioned some specific conditions: “I wouldn’t say anything in particular.” So there.
For obvious reasons, Scheffler has increasingly been compared to Woods. It’s fitting, then, that Riviera is paying him dividends. It also gave Woods fits. It’s the tournament he somehow never won.
Scheffler probably won’t win this edition, though you’d be a fool to write him off completely. As it turns out, Scottie Scheffler isn’t too good to be in last place.
And he is even worse at standing there.
Dylan Dethier will be coming from the Riviera all weekend. You can reach it at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
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