Scottie Scheffler had 1 phrase to sum up his worst end in practically 2 years

This week’s a recent begin for Scottie Scheffler, who shocked us all by not winning the U.S. Open final week. In truth, Scheffler didn’t even end within the prime 10, like he had in his earlier 11 begins getting into the week (5 of which have been wins).

Now he’s in Cromwell, Conn., for the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands, a Signature Occasion this yr. Which means a greater discipline and a much bigger purse. It additionally means a unique type of golf course than what we noticed at Pinehurst No. 2. And Scheffler, based mostly on what he mentioned final week and on Wednesday on the Vacationers, is OK with that.

Three days faraway from his last spherical of the U.S. Open, Scheffler was requested how he’d characterize his week. He smiled, earlier than admitting: “lengthy.”

“Only a lengthy week,” he continued. “I might say it’s a troublesome week. I didn’t have my finest stuff and that’s a reasonably troublesome golf course to try to make a number of birdies and play some good golf round while you don’t have your finest stuff. I feel that’s how I might characterize it.”

Chatting with the media on Sunday, Scheffler mentioned enjoying the Memorial at a mode after all like Muirfield Village “in all probability was not the very best prep work for me coming into one other actually difficult occasion.” (Despite him winning it.) He struggled on Pinehurst’s troublesome, topped Donald Ross greens all week.

He ranked seventieth in Strokes Gained: Placing and by no means made greater than 65-feet value of putts in any spherical.

“Once we come again right here in just a few years [in 2029], I’ll in all probability attempt to do much more work getting issues happening the greens,” Scheffler mentioned Sunday. “I felt like I did a number of my work across the greens this week, and possibly I wanted to do extra — the observe greens weren’t the identical pace because the course, and it was arduous to search out one thing comparable.”

One other component that set Pinehurst other than different typical PGA Tour or main programs was its pesky wire grass that dotted the sandy areas off the fairways. If gamers entered there, typically it was manageable. Different instances, it was not.

“After I’m not enjoying my finest I really feel like considered one of my expertise is form of managing my means across the golf course understanding the place the misses are. When you might have just about a coin flip on whether or not or not you’re going to have a swing or not there’s probably not a aspect of the green to overlook it on, there’s probably not areas you’ll be able to play to, you simply need to hit nice golf photographs,” Scheffler mentioned Wednesday. “And while you’re not hitting it nice, you already know, I really feel like that’s why I’m often capable of compete once I don’t have my finest stuff is the way in which I form of handle my means across the golf course, and final week you’re simply not ready to do this, simply with the character of the grass. Since you might hit it a foot off the green and be in a bush, and you would hit it 20 yards off the green and have an ideal lie that you simply’re — and it performs such as you’re within the fairway.

“In order that a part of the course I didn’t love, however fairway to greens, I believed it was unbelievable. I believed it was an incredible take a look at of golf,” he continued. “It challenged us in all the suitable methods. You needed to hit nice photographs in an effort to maintain the greens. Across the greens you at all times had some kind of shot since you’re enjoying out of the brief grass. So I feel typically when the tough is basically heavy you see guys enjoying the identical shot over and over. And a ball that runs by means of the inexperienced goes the identical distance over the inexperienced as a ball that hardly trickles. And when it’s all runoff areas which might be tightly mown you pay greater penalty for a much bigger miss, which I feel as gamers that’s all we’re on the lookout for is to have good photographs rewarded and have unhealthy photographs punished accordingly to how unhealthy they’re.”

Scheffler’s T41 end was his worst since he was T45 on the 2022 CJ Cup, which was practically 50 tournaments in the past.

However now he’s moved on to the Vacationers, the final Signature Occasion of the season; he’s already received three of them. And though Scheffler has but to win at TPC River Highlands, his caddie has. Thrice. Ted Scott was on the bag for all three of Bubba Watson’s Vacationers wins.

“He at all times jogs my memory of that,” Scheffler joked.

Scheffler is paired with Max Homa for the primary two rounds of the Vacationers. They start the match at 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

Josh Berhow

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of many sport’s most-read information and repair web sites. He spends most of his days writing, enhancing, planning and questioning if he’ll ever break 80. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF.com in 2015, he labored at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State College in Mankato, Minn., he resides within the Twin Cities along with his spouse and two youngsters. You may attain him at [email protected].