The strange experience of watching Scottie Scheffler in last place

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — It was telling that Scottie Scheffler, 12 shots off the lead, finished Friday with a fist pump.

Scheffler’s seven-footer for par dove right. It caught the edge. It fell to the bottom. And the World No. 1, filled with belief and relief, moved on to the weekend, some two touchdowns behind leader Marco Penge but with two quarters yet to play.

The putt told a story about the day, about the course, about the man. But mostly it ended a strange afternoon that began with an even stranger question:

What the hell is Scottie Scheffler doing in last place?!

Scheffler’s journey to last place was more complicated than bad golf. When a rain-delayed day finally halted play midway through the first round, Scheffler was only halfway through his first 18 at the Genesis. The horn sounded about a half-hour after Scheffler made double bogey at No. 8 and just minutes after bogey at No. 10. At the time, Scheffler was five over par, T71 in a field of 72, and stuck there from sundown Thursday to sunup Friday. Scheffler is familiar with the feeling of sleeping on the lead. This time he was sleeping on the anti-lead. Beating nobody. Strange.

I came out eager to watch Scheffler early Friday morning, curious to get a read on whether there was something gravely wrong with the best golfer in the world (unlikely) or if he was setting the stage for another exhilarating comeback (very likely). The 7 a.m. restart meant it was a sparse crowd, likely just as much due to the cold as the early hour (42 degrees by my count, likely colder in the damp dark of Riviera’s lowlands, an absolute no-go for a fairweather fan). Scheffler wore a white Nike winter hat over a white Nike baseball hat. He wore a sweater, plus a vest that he took on and off, as he tends to. It was a muted scene but pleasant; everyone in the coffee-clutching crowd seemed happy they’d decided to brave the elements. It’s special to watch the world’s best golfer play one of the world’s best courses alongside just a handful of bundled-up diehards. Even if he’s in last place. Maybe especially if he’s in last place.

Scheffler was undoubtedly on property in the wee hours, warming up his swing, his body, his mind. Comparatively, as someone who can barely function in the world, I misjudged traffic, struggled to find the correct parking lot and barely made it onto the course by the time play resumed.

When I saw Scheffler for the first time, he’d just hit the toughest tee shot on property, driver down the uncomfortable 12th, pummeling one 315 yards down the left side of the fairway. He hit an uncharacteristic approach, missing the green left with a wedge, but canned an eight-footer for par that turned out to be the start of something good. His next hole — smashed driver, wedge to eight feet, first birdie of the week — got him out of last place. I did not expect he would return.

To prove my point, Scheffler poured in a 20-footer for birdie at No. 14, too, to improve to three over par. And then he made a six-footer for par at No. 15. He’d missed several short putts on Thursday. This looked to be a different guy.

That’s what’s interesting: for the last three weeks, Thursday Scheffler has been a different guy. A strong finish to this first round still only put a neat bow on what had been his third mediocre opening session in a row. Scheffler started the WM Phoenix Open with 73. He opened the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with 72. Both efforts put him in the bottom half of those respective leaderboards. And now he’d rallied just for 74 at a soft setup at Riviera?

It’s fun to watch Scheffler dominate, but this routine has arguably been more interesting. It’s shocking viewing to see Scheffler dig himself a hole on Thursdays — and it’s riveting to watch him climb his way out. If it wasn’t antithetical to his entire way of being you’d figure he was doing it on purpose, spotting the leaders a 10-stroke head start just to make things interesting down the stretch. He roared back at TPC Scottsdale, 65-67-64, to finish one shot outside a playoff. He roared back at Pebble, 66-67-63, to finish two shots outside a playoff. Overnight at Riviera, Scheffler was 11 shots off the lead and beating nobody. He was still listed among the betting favorites.

As he appeared to lock in on another comeback, I studied Scheffler for some sort of tell — something that seemed different on Friday, something that made him play his first 10 holes at five over par and his final eight holes at two under. I mostly came up blank. The difference I saw could be chalked up to weather and conditions, plus a few putts, and the vagaries of a complex sport. He was less visibly frustrated on Friday, but that’s hardly a revelation; he wasn’t missing five-footers. When Scheffler’s on edge, you’ll know. As he said in his Tuesday press conference, with a grin, to a reporter:

“You’ve played golf before, right? Yeah, it’s frustrating.”

But Scheffler still leaves you with a strong in-person impression. His intensity stands out. That doesn’t mean white knuckles and a clenched jaw. It means a 30-second, full-focus huddle-up with caddie Ted Scott before picking the correct shot, even 10 shots off the lead. It means a complete reset before the next shot. One thing he has borrowed from Tiger Woods is a commitment to commitment. There is no pack-it-in option.

More Scheffler, from pre-tournament: “I may not be, like, the flashiest player, but I feel like my mind has always been my greatest tool, and I just try to use that to my advantage.”

That much is clear.

After a short break, the threesome of Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Si Woo Kim headed to the first tee to begin their second round. When the World No. 1 birdied No. 1, it felt like the comeback was officially on.

But then it wasn’t. Scheffler bogeyed No. 2, ran off four pars in a row, and then bogeyed No. 7. He was back to four over par, ahead of exactly one player (Garrick Higgo) and 11 shots behind playing partner Xander Schauffele.

That was the moment Scheffler looked the most despondent. His hat askew, he stormed his way to the eighth tee and collapsed into a chair in frustration. Then he fired his tee shot well left, repeating a left miss he battled all day. As the ball soared off line, Scheffler dropped his driver on follow-through, apoplectic. That’s a Scheffler hallmark: he’s so used to things going right that he can’t believe it when they don’t.

In that moment it felt like Scheffler’s tournament was all but over. But weirdly, the stumble seemed to highlight just how few stumbles there have been. Cut-making has gotten easier, with more no-cut events and smaller fields. Still, Scheffler hasn’t missed one since the summer of 2022. That’s nuts. What’s even nuttier is Scheffler’s streak of 19 consecutive finishes of T8 or better. We can take his relentlessness for granted, but we shouldn’t.

The key to Scheffler’s relentlessness is that he never takes anything for granted. And so he found his way to par at No. 8 and then played essentially perfect golf for the next 40 minutes, sticking his approach to three feet at No. 9, chipping to two feet at the drivable par-4 10th, and hitting a brilliant second at the par-5 11th. Birdie, birdie, birdie. He still needed one more, but couldn’t find it until the par-5 17th, where he splashed a challenging mid-length, all-carry bunker shot to four feet and made the putt. And then came No. 18, where he just missed the green but shorted a chip shot before bailing himself out with a nervy par putt that bought him two more chances to climb the leaderboard.

The fist pump, plus the ferocious high five he shared with Scott, showed a man clearly not too cool to grind for a made cut. All that to crack the top 50 in a 72-player field. All that to keep the streak alive. All that to climb from the basement to the first floor.

Scheffler made no excuses post-round. He sounded relieved to have snuck away with par at the last after he’d “tried to make a mess of a pretty basic chip there.” He admitted that he hasn’t quite cracked Riviera’s code.

“I don’t know, this place and I have a weird relationship. I feel like I can play so well out here and I just haven’t yet,” he said.

As for his Thursday woes? Scheffler cited some specific conditions: “I would not say anything in particular.” So there.

For obvious reasons, Scheffler has been increasingly compared to Woods. It’s fitting, then, that Riviera is giving him fits. It gave Woods fits, too. It’s the tournament he somehow never won.

Scheffler probably won’t win this edition, though you’d be foolish to write him off completely. As it turns out, Scottie Scheffler isn’t very good at being in last place.

And he’s even worse at staying there.

Dylan Dethier will be chiming in from Riviera all weekend. You can reach him at dylan_dethier@golf.com.