scheffler in the hunt
British Open 2024: Scottie Scheffler lurking heading into weekend with chance to win second major this year
Pedro Salado
TROON, Scotland — Don’t look now. Here he comes. You know, the tall American guy with the beard. As ever hidden in plain sight, Scottie Scheffler has lurked his almost traditional way into contention at a major championship. No one else amongst golf’s elite hangs around leaderboards with the same consistency.
So it is no surprise that, with one-half of the 152nd Open Championship still to play, the World No. 1 is two under par after two circuits of Royal Troon and five shots off Shane Lowry’s peerless pace.
Perhaps most ominously for those currently occupying places of prominence in golf’s oldest major, Scheffler’s second consecutive round of 70, while failing to represent numerical progress, was, he felt, an improvement from Day 1. On the greens especially.
“I definitely made a few more putts than yesterday, which was one of those days where it felt like nothing could fall,” he claimed. “The golf course was more challenging today than yesterday. I'm not sure what the scores say, but it definitely felt to be a bit more challenging. I feel like I holed a good amount of putts today. I'd be interested to see what the statistics are [Scheffler used his putter 31 times Thursday; 27 times Friday] because I felt like I holed a good amount of putts. I hit a lot of good ones. It can be really challenging with how windy it is out there to hole a bunch of putts.”
Never one to make claims that even border on the outlandish, Scheffler contented himself with a typically prosaic assessment of his philosophy on greens that are markedly slower than those seen on the PGA Tour week-to-week.
“Just keep getting the ball up around the hole, and the more I can get it closer to the hole more often, the more putts I'm going to hole,” said the 27-year-old Texan. “If I'm hitting good putts and they're going up around the edge, I think it's almost more likely that I'm going to make more putts here in the future.”
Amidst such serious talk, there was time for at least a little levity. Well, it made Scheffler laugh, even if his caddie, Ted Scott, was having a hard time finding any humor in the stomach bug that laid him low overnight.
“He seemed to feel better as the day went on,” said Scott’s boss. “The doc here took good care of him. But he did not sleep very much last night apparently. We didn't know if he was going to be able to go this morning, but he fought it out. You saw him laying down probably quite a bit out there, which was pretty funny. I’m used to him being in one position, standing there by the bag, But on No. 9 today he was sitting on the 10th tee for like 10 minutes while we were putting out. I didn't even see him, which was a bit unusual. But he's a fighter. He did a good job today and battled through it.”
Back on his more customary middle-of-the-road track, Scheffler wasn’t biting when asked if his mere presence on a leaderboard was something that might strike fear into the hearts of his fellow competitors.
“Not really,” he shrugged. “I just try to stay in my own little world out there, just continue to hit good shots and just try to execute. It doesn't really matter to me what those guys are doing. I'm trying to do my best to hit good shots and put myself in position, and going into the weekend, like you said, five shots back, I feel like I'm in a decent position.”
Still, at least according to Lowry, there is something to the “Scheffler is coming; look out” theory. When that proposition was put to the leader, the Irishman pointed immediately to the Masters champion as one who most certainly would be relatively unconcerned by the five-shot gap between them.
“I'm not sure Scottie is too worried about anyone with the form he's in,” said a smiling Lowry. “He's obviously on the leaderboard, and he's one person that people are going to be talking about.”
And thinking about. Already Scheffler has clearly found a home in Lowry’s head. Whether that leads to a celebratory drink from the claret jug on the flight back to Dallas remains to be seen.
• • •
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
• • •
MORE GOLF DIGEST BRITISH OPEN COVERAGE