Home early from an event for the first time in seven months, Scottie Scheffler did something he almost never does.
He watched the tournament on TV.
While practicing at home over the weekend, Scheffler pulled up the end of the PGA Championship on his phone. He had several rooting interests: He’s good friends with Justin Thomas; he’s been battling for years with Will Zalatoris; and his former caddie, Scott McGuinness, was on the bag for 54-hole leader Mito Pereira.
“I had a lot of different guys I wanted to watch,” he said, “and it was fun.”
Full-field scores from Charles Schwab Challenge
Of course, Scheffler would have preferred to be at Southern Hills, taking aim at a second consecutive major championship that was eventually won by Thomas. But the world No. 1 got caught on the wrong side of the draw (about a two-shot difference) and made a series of late miscues in the second round to miss his first cut since October.
“I was very frustrated, obviously, with how last week ended,” he told reporters Thursday. “You never want to miss a cut. I hadn’t missed a cut in a while up to that point, so I think it makes it even more frustrating just knowing that I was playing really good golf and I just didn’t have it that week.
“That stuff happens. If I didn’t like bad draws or making crazy mistakes and stuff like that, I would have played a different sport. A lot of weird stuff happens in golf. So for me, it’s just one week, and I hate missing cuts, but it’s good.”
Scheffler showed Thursday that it may have been an aberration. On a tricky day for scoring at Colonial, he opened with a bogey-free 66 to share the lead among the early starters at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Despite a sub-par putting day, he gained nearly four strokes on the field with his approach play.
In his other home event this spring, at the AT&T Byron Nelson, Scheffler tied for 15th.
“I felt like I did a really good job of managing around the golf course,” he said. “Any time you make no bogeys, it’s going to be a good round.”