Scottie Scheffler has kept coming back to the same answer when asked in different ways about how a day that began with optimism at the United States Open turned into a five-and-a-half-hour slog that left him well off the front page of the leaderboard.
“I’ve probably got to give myself a few more looks,” the world’s top-ranked player said Thursday after a 3-over 73 left him seven shots behind frontrunner JJ Spaun.
Scheffler was talking about looks for reasonable birdie putts. Those didn’t happen nearly enough during those often arduous hours at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. As for plain old “looks”, however, well, the three-time major winner had those in abundance.
Looks of frustration, like when his drive on the par-5 12th landed in the middle of a fairway that slopes massively from left to right and kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling until it was in the first cut of the course’s signature ankle-deep rough.
Looks of bafflement, like when his 1.8-metre (6ft) par putt at the par-3 13th slid by, causing him to put his hand over his mouth and turn to caddie Ted Scott as if to say, “What just happened?”
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Looks of anger, like when his wedge from 76 metres (83 yards) on the easy (by Oakmont standards) par-4 14th landed 12 metres (40ft) past the hole. Scheffler slammed the club into the ground before collecting himself to two-putt.
Looks of annoyance, when his 3.7-metre (12ft) birdie attempt at the par-4 17th lipped out. Scheffler bent over, pressed his hands on his knees and appeared to sigh before standing back up.
That doesn’t even include what he described as “sloppy” bogeys on the par-4 third and par-5 fourth when he found the sand off the tee.
It added up to tying his worst opening round in a major ever. He did that at the 2021 Masters, a year before he began a run of dominance not seen since Tiger Woods’s prime two decades ago. Heck, he even managed a 1-under 69 at Oakmont as a 19-year-old amateur in 2016.
Nine years later, Scheffler’s life is very different. When he walked out of the scoring area in the late spring twilight, his toddler son, Bennett, and wife, Meredith, and other members of his family were waiting.
The course, however, remains the same physically and mentally draining task it has always been.
There’s a reason Scheffler teed off at 1:25pm and didn’t tap in for par on 18 until 6:52pm even though there wasn’t a hint of rain or wind or any other external factors to gum up the works. There was only Oakmont being Oakmont.
The fairways that Spaun navigated to a 4-under 66 in the morning dried up throughout the kind of muggy, sun-baked day that’s been uncommon during Western Pennsylvania’s cool, wet spring.
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Scheffler made only two putts over 3 metres (10ft), none over the final seven holes and three-putted the par-3 13th. How? He has no idea. Yet he also knows one middling round doesn’t necessarily ruin his chances of winning the third leg of the grand slam.
Play a little “sharper” in the second round, and he thinks he might be in a better position come the weekend.
“When you’re playing these types of tests that are this challenging, there’s usually still a way to score,” he said.
He might find them sooner rather than later. In each of Scheffler’s 16 PGA Tour victories, he found himself inside the top 30 after 18 holes. He’ll be outside that number when he puts his tee in the ground at No 10 on Friday morning to start his second round.
“I’ll clean up some of those mistakes, a couple three putts and stuff like that,” he said on Thursday. “And I think tomorrow will be a better day.”
Rory McIlroy, still looking to regain the form that helped him complete a career Grand Slam at the Masters in April, started on the back nine and made two early birdies to reach the turn just two shots back of Spaun before a wayward second nine.
World number two McIlroy made four bogeys over a seven-hole stretch out of the turn, followed by a double bogey at the par-3 eighth, where he left his tee shot in the thick rough and failed to get out on his first attempt. He signed for a 74.
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Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, one of 14 LIV Golf players in the field and looking to become the first repeat US Open winner since Brooks Koepka in 2018, spent too much time in Oakmont’s penal rough and opened with a 73.
“It was a brutal test of golf. But one that I’m excited for tomorrow,” DeChambeau said.