Scottie Scheffler was able to avoid a career-low in greens hit in regulation during his first round at Muirfield Village on Thursday afternoon.
That’s about as positive of a spin to be put on the two-time Memorial Tournament champion’s title defense: It could have theoretically been worse.
After carding a 1-over 73, though, Scheffler looked more ready to fight himself than to contend for a three-peat at Jack’s Place.
The apex of frustration came after his tee shot on the par-3 16th hole hooked into the water.
“I don’t know what to do,” the cameras caught him saying to his caddie, Ted Scott.
“I’m hitting good shots and now dropping from hazards. You cannot get the wind wrong,” said Scheffler with the palm of his hand pressed against his jaw, a comment directed toward Scott.
Scheffler finished with a double bogey, putting him at 4 over on the back nine. A birdie from the fringe at No. 17 — only the second of the day on the hole — was hardly redemption for the world’s top-ranked player, who won his opening event at the American Express in January but has yet to find his second win over the last four months.
“The wind switched from down off the right to pretty significantly in off the right,” he told reporters after his round when asked about what happened off the tee at No. 16. “If it’s down off the right, that ball’s probably where I hit my wedge shot to [from the drop zone]. So, just don’t really know what I’m supposed to do there outside of trying to hit a good shot, and then it’s frustrating when it doesn’t work out, especially when it doesn’t work out in that direction.”
“I would rather get gusted in off the left, not in off the right there,” he added. “All you can do is just try to hit good shots. It can be very frustrating sometimes when you feel like you’re hitting good shots and then you’re going to the drop zone.”
It wasn’t all intensity for Scheffler, who sits T-33 and six strokes off the lead entering Friday’s second round.
He admitted that the 7-iron shot he made on the following hole was a fun.
“Good breaks are more fun than — that one [that went into the water],” Scheffler said in his post-round interview. “That’s the thing that can be so frustrating about golf is, I striped one on the hole before that and I end up in the water.”
“That one I kind of hit thin, and you get a good bounce and I end up on the fringe and I chip in,” he said about the birdie on No. 17. “Look, it’s always a touch thin out of the bunker, but I was trying to hit it a little higher so I could hold the green. And then that one lands in the rough just over the bunker, which is also dead, that bunker, and ended up chipping one in. So you’re just like, ‘All right. Yeah, what a game.’ I felt like I didn’t get anything out of the round, all of a sudden you just get a lucky bounce and you’re like, ‘OK, well, I’m going to try to smile.’ It’s still hard.”