Scottie’s day on beach ends in ‘lucky’ par

Scottie Scheffler trails Sepp Straka by seven strokes after 36 holes. —AFP

PEBBLE BEACH—Temperatures were plunging and the wind was whipping—not an ideal day for a walk on the beach. It turned out to be a par-saving moment for Scottie Scheffler on Friday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Scheffler pulled his tee shot on the par-5 18th hole at Pebble Beach toward the Pacific Ocean. He never saw it carom off the rocks or splash in golf’s biggest water hazard.

His only other option was to take a penalty drop some 40 yards forward at the end of the tee box. So he figured he might as well walk 300 yards and take a look. Good thing he did.

“Saw a ball on the beach, went down there, found my ball, moved some rocks, hit it out, hit it on the green, two-putted,” Scheffler said, making it sound all so routine.

It took some good fortune, starting with finding his golf ball. He had to take a long route to the beach, down a 5-foot rock shelf, walking back some 40 yards to find a smaller ledge to sea level, careful not to slip along the way. He also was able to move small rocks and seaweed around his ball.

Wedge out of trouble

Then it was a matter of hitting it cleanly enough with a wedge to get it over the cliff and back toward the fairway. Once he managed that, it was a 6-iron from 179 yards that he got to the back right of the green, leaving him two putts from 40 feet for a par and a two-under 70.

Scheffler was seven shots behind going into the weekend, still very much in the mix, and a little lucky to not be further back.

“I’ve made good pars,” he said. “That one was more lucky than anything.”

Scheffler certainly would have taken a 5 from where he hit his tee shot, and he had few other complaints about his game considering this is his first real competition in nearly two months.