Scottie Scheffler rolls in round 2 for three-stroke lead
COVER PHOTO: Scottie Scheffler eyes up his tee shot on No. 18 during the second round of the 49th annual Memorial Tournament. Picture by Nicole McCray/Columbus Wired.
After carding a five-under par, 67, for his first round, the world’s top golfer didn’t skip a beat on Friday by shooting a four-under par, 68, at the 49th annual Memorial Tournament.
He was bogey-free on the front nine with three birdies but had mixed results on the back where he bogeyed Nos. 11 and 13 but followed those up with an eagle on par-5, No. 15 and a birdie on the last hole.
It was his best second round ever at Muirfield Village Golf Club and the second-lowest round of the day next to Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s 67.
Combined with Thursday’s 67 and his 68 today, this is the first time in Scottie Scheffler’s short, four-year Memorial history that he’s shot back-to-back 60’s for the first two rounds. He was also only one of six guys out of the 73-man field to shoot in the 60’s for today’s round.
Lately he’s been making his work on a golf course look easy.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
“No, easy is definitely not the right word,” he said with a laugh. “I feel like what I love about this game is how difficult it is. I love coming out here and competing against the best players in the world on the best golf courses and this is obviously a pretty challenging track.”
On a day where the playing conditions were prime with a high temperature in the low 70’s and very low humidity, it was a day where low scores appeared to be very likely. Except there was one caveat: 18 mile per hour winds that had close to 30 mph gusts at certain points.
Scheffler started the day at 1:40 p.m. as the third-to-last pairing to tee off. The temperature and humidity was still low at that point but winds were still high.
He said he simply tried his best to continue executing his game and caddie Ted Scott did what any great caddie would do by navigating around the wind.
“Teddy did a really good job of getting most of the winds right for the day and that’s a pretty challenging task,” Scheffler said. “You have so many trees that kind of block it and when it’s gusty, it can be really challenging and start blowing from directions where it’s not quite supposed to be at times.”
Scheffler started the day with two straight pars and then knocked down an eight foot putt on par-4, No. 3 after landing his second shot from the fairway in the middle of the green. Another birdie two holes later and a third to close out the front put him -7 for the day and he was in the lead by a stroke over Adam Hadwin.
He started par-4, No. 10 with a par but hit a snag on par-5, No. 11 when his tee shot went into the first cut on the right side of the fairway. His second shot didn’t get any better when the wind took it into the left rough and then his third shot found the front bunker. His birdie shot from the sand went 10 feet past the hole and his par putt went back the other way almost five feet past the hole. He was able to catch the left portion of the cup just enough that it swallowed his ball for the bogey.
Two holes later it was his second bogey of the day as his first two shots, once again, caught the rough and his third shot came up 11 feet short of the hole. His par putt pushed right and rolled nearly three feet past the hole but he was able to put down the bogey from there.
At that point, he was one stroke better than where he started the round but was now tied for the lead with Hadwin.
However, his luck would change on No. 15.
Facing 225 yards remaining to the green after whacking his tee shot 306 yards into the middle of the fairway, Scheffler landed his second shot onto the green about 50 feet away from the cup - skirting the edge of the right fringe next to where a bunker sits- and managed to get the roll he was looking for as it came to a stop less than nine feet away. From there, he calmly stepped up, sank the eagle putt and took a two-stroke lead at 8-under.
He said his second shot was at the right distance for him to be able to pull off the shot the way he did.
“It was just a kind of nice hold 3-iron and, yeah, I felt like I had a good number and it’s when I have a number where I want to cut it and the pin’s on the right and that was one of those instances. So I was able to hit a really nice shot in there pretty close to the pin and hole the putt.”
After parring the next two holes, his birdie on No. 18 wouldn’t come without a little bit of a test when he plunked his tee shot into the right fairway bunker. Instead of playing up, though, Scheffler rolled the dice and went for broke. He crushed his second shot out of the sand 182 yards that landed pin-high, 12 feet shy of the hole.
He’s now 9-under for the tournament and has a three-shot lead over Hadwin and the reigning Memorial champ, Viktor Hovland.
Scheffler will tee off with Hadwin for the third round at 1:45 p.m.