Scottie Scheffler woke up 12 strokes off the Genesis Invitational lead on Saturday.
The world No. 1 might not have improved that deficit 18 holes later but he walked off Riviera Country Club satisfied with a 5-under 66 for his third round.
Most importantly though, Scheffler shook off a slow start and looked more like the 20-time PGA Tour winner — the player who has made every cut dating back to August 2022 — with three straight birdies on the back nine.
“Some days it’s going to go well and other days it’s not going to go well,” Scheffler told reporters in his post-round interview. “You look at three tournaments in a row, I haven’t started off that good. When you look at it like from a macro view, it’s such a small sample size. I played now 11 rounds the last few weeks and I had eight pretty solid ones and three I’d like to have back.”
Scheffler has been able to cut his number of bogeys in half with each passing round at the Genesis (down to one in Round 3), showing for the third consecutive Saturday that he can still build momentum and find comfort on a course.
He still has a self-proclaimed “weird relationship” with Riviera despite showing up Saturday with his best round of the week.
“At times it still felt weird,” Scheffler said of his third-round success. “The golf course is gettable in the morning, the greens are fresher. So I was able to hole a few putts, which is key. I don’t necessarily know what else to say. ... I wanted to shoot a little bit lower, but overall 5 under is pretty solid.”
Improvement is good but Scheffler won’t be achieving the ultimate goal in winning at Riviera Country Club — doing what even Tiger Woods could not during his illustrious career.
He still has the top-10 streak to keep intact on Sunday — that’s up to 18 straight finishes tied for 10th or better after his master-class work at Pebble Beach last Sunday that saw him card three eagles for the first time in a single round.
While he is now 14 back of runaway leader Jacob Bridgeman, Scheffler, at 5 under, is thee shots back of the current top 10.
The streak didn’t seem to matter to him a week ago after 54 holes. Flash forward a week, and the question of extending it to 19 was never asked.
Perhaps too much golf remains to be played on the final leg of the Tour’s West Coast swing. Or, maybe everyone in the golf world knows one thing for certain — slow start or not, Scheffler won’t go quietly into the California night.