PORTRUSH, Northern Eire — Scottie Scheffler barely hung out among the many Royal Portrush fairways Thursday, hitting solely three of the 14 on the course throughout his opening spherical of the Open Championship.
However whereas sometimes lacking fairways on Portrush’s Dunluce Hyperlinks is usually a recipe for catastrophe, the No. 1 participant on this planet confirmed why he is usually proof against even his personal poor play, battling for a powerful spherical of 3-under 68 regardless of his shaky play off the tee.
“When it is raining sideways, it is truly, imagine it or not, not that straightforward to get the ball within the fairway,” Scheffler mentioned sarcastically. “I felt like I hit the ball good off the tee, and actually solely had one swing I wasn’t too pleased with — on perhaps the second gap. However outdoors of that, I felt like I hit a number of good tee pictures, hit the ball actually stable, so positively an excellent little bit of confidence for the subsequent couple rounds.”
Scheffler may need preached positivity after his spherical, however as soon as he completed talking to the media, he headed over to the vary to work on his driver swing.
The three-time main winner buoyed his subpar driving along with his customary elite method recreation (+3.27 strokes gained) and a placing efficiency that was much better than what he confirmed on the Scottish Open final week. There, he misplaced 1.45 strokes along with his placing whereas nonetheless ending inside the highest 10. On Thursday at Portrush, the place he described the greens as “smoother,” Scheffler gained 2.26 strokes on the greens.
“Placing is a kind of offers the place, particularly when there’s somewhat little bit of exercise on the greens, you possibly can hit a number of good putts that do not go in,” Scheffler mentioned. “I am attempting to do my finest to be excellent each week, however some weeks the putts simply aren’t stepping into and I did an excellent job battling final week.”
This week, nonetheless, Scheffler — who hung out Tuesday talking about how he usually finds the fleeting nature of winning to be pointless — clarified that he is not settling for a top-10 end and is attempting to do the whole lot to win the match.
“I feel I’ve made that fairly clear over the course of my profession,” Scheffler mentioned. “At instances I really feel like perhaps I needs to be rather less trustworthy. Possibly I should not have mentioned the stuff I mentioned [Tuesday], as a result of now I’ll get requested about it extra. However actually it is only a matter of perspective, and I’ve had some gamers come as much as me and say that they really feel and assume the identical issues.”
Although he could have gotten away with lacking 11 fairways Thursday, the remainder of the week will doubtless require extra — not simply from Scheffler’s driving however from his total recreation and mentality. His group performed roughly half its spherical Thursday in regular wind and rain.
The rain particularly, Scheffler mentioned, makes issues more durable than it seems.
“Wind is one thing that clearly makes hyperlinks golf difficult, however the rain provides an entire new factor to it, particularly while you’re hitting the tee balls,” Scheffler mentioned. “You get somewhat moisture between the membership face and the ball, particularly with the longer golf equipment and the woods, and it may be fairly difficult.”
However as he confirmed Thursday, Scheffler is greater than up for that problem.
