Scottie struggles in first round at Sawgrass, where four share clubhouse lead
PONTE VEDRA BEACH—Scottie Scheffler nearly found the water on the 12th hole with his tee shot on the 14th. On the next hole, he was closer to the 11th green than the 15th fairway. One led to a bogey, the other a long birdie putt and it added to a 72 on Thursday in The Players Championship.
It was the fourth time in his last five tournaments that Scheffler failed to break par in the opening round. And his day wasn’t done. He spent over an hour on the range during a downpour.
What stood out on the Stadium Course at the TPC Sawgrass was the missing half of the fairways, some by quite a large margin.
“It’s easier hitting it from the fairway than it is from the rough. I played from the rough a lot today,” Scheffler said. “I hit some good iron shots, which was really nice … And I did a pretty good job of managing my way around the course. Just got to be a little sharper.”
Sometimes, even hitting the fairway didn’t help. He missed his second shot to the right on the par-5 second (his 11th of the day), which isn’t the worst place to be, except that his ball was in pine straw just beneath the collar of grass. He fluffed that into a bunker, hit a pedestrian bunker shot and made bogey.
Scheffler seemed most irritated about making back-to-back bogeys late in his round, on the par-4 seventh and par-3 eighth. From the right rough, he left himself a 25-yard bunker shot on No. 7 and he was dealt a nasty lie in the rough on the next hole.
Scheffler went back to his old driver after experimenting with a newer one.
“I’ve seen some improvements in the new driver—like my spin is much more consistent,” he said. “But the way I play, I always hit so many different types of shots and the one last week felt like it was going a little left on me and when I want to hit my peeler, a lot of times I would hit it out of the middle of the face, it would start drawing on me.”
The first round of The Players Championship was interrupted by heavy rain, a band of storms that moved so quickly toward the Atlantic Ocean that officials had players wait in place instead of bringing them in.
Sepp Straka saved par seven times and chipped in for eagle late in his round while avoiding big trouble for a 67 that gave him a share of the lead at amid wind, rain, sunshine and darkness.
Whether he remained atop the leaderboard with Maverick McNealy, Lee Hodges and Sahith Theegala would not be determined until Friday morning, with Austin Smotherman at five-under-par and had a 15-foot birdie putt on his final hole, the par-5 ninth.
