LOS ANGELES – Scottie Scheffler wants to set the record straight.
“I did not throw the ball into the crowd,” Scheffler said in response to a question that confused one major detail from his infamous ball disposal two years ago on Riviera Country Club’s 11th hole.
The reality: A frustrated Scheffler, having just missed another couple putts, threw his ball into the nearby woods like he was playing right field for the Rangers.
“The trees were OK,” he added, laughing off the honest mistake in the process.
It’s easy to do when things have gone as well as they have for the world No. 1 in recent months. Scheffler enters this week’s Genesis Invitational riding a streak of 18 straight top-10s, an impressive stretch almost unfathomable when one considers it includes seven wins and no finish worse than T-8. This year, he’s gone win, T-3, T-4, with those latter two showings including uncharacteristically poor starts.
Now, Scheffler arrives at Riviera, a place where he first missed the match-play cut at the 2017 U.S. Amateur, where he fell in a 13-for-8 playoff with a double bogey on the par-4 10th hole. He then missed the 2018 Genesis Open cut as an amateur. And as a pro, he’s posted four top-20s in five appearances, including a trio of top-12s, but never has he come within six shots of the winner.
He’s not alone, either, as he, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have combined for 27 starts at Riv without a win, the most of any Tour course.
“I think it’s an interesting golf course because there’s not really many hazards,” Scheffler said. “There’s not really too much out of bounds that comes into play. When you think of some of the other great golf courses like TPC Sawgrass, you’ve got a lot of water that comes into play. And when you look at this golf course and you look at it on paper, it seems kind of easy.
“Then you start playing it, and you’re like, hit a ball in the rough on 2 and you’re like, ‘Man this hole is kind of hard.’ Then you don’t hit the fairway on 3 and you’re like, ‘oh, shoot, I don’t know how I am going to hit the ball on the green here,’ and then the golf course just eats away at you over time.”
Scheffler has done a lot of good at Riv. He’s led a field in strokes gained: off the tee and around the green. Twice he’s been top 30 putting. Perhaps what’s held Scheffler back is he’s only cracked the top 10 in approach once, in 2022, when he was fifth and ended up T-7, seven shots behind.
Far and away the most prolific iron player on Tour in recent years, Scheffler attributed Riv’s kikuyu grass and slopey, architecturally sound greens as most challenging to him.
“The grass provides a different set of challenges than we see throughout the rest of the year, and I feel like this golf course can be about as frustrating to play as any on Tour just with the little tricks that it has to it,” Scheffler said. “Overall, if you execute out here, you’re going to get rewarded for it.”