'I'll move on': Scottie Scheffler explains critical failure on 72nd hole
 |
| Scottie Scheffler missed from five feet to lose the Houston Open. |
He won his last two starts on the PGA Tour, the tour's two biggest events since at least the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship. This week's Texas Children's Houston Open opened the week with the lowest pre-tournament rating on tour this year.
After the first round, he set a tour record for consecutive subpar rounds. Two days later, he took a 54-hole lead.
Scheffler undoubtedly would have won from a group of five leaders, but Scheffler was the only Tour winner among them. Even after missing Memorial Park's short but brutal par-3 15th for the second day in a row and giving up two strokes, Scheffler still had a par-5 left.
Of course, he could have made up the two-stroke gap by sinking his second putt within 20 feet of the hole. Even when Scheffler missed the cut, he still managed to snatch a one-shot birdie from playing partner Stefan Jaeger, but he was left with a manageable par four.
Of course, he could have birdied one of his four easiest holes of the day. Scheffler made a birdie on the final hole, even though he bent the ball to the left, pitched short 11 feet to the hole and missed the putt.
And yes, of course, it looked exactly like that. At age 18, Scheffler approached from 185 yards, landed near the hole, stopped and carefully rolled to within 5 feet, 4 inches of the hole.
Scheffler, whose short putt was his only Achilles' heel, missed a similar distance on the same hole two days earlier and then missed a turnaround, but the putt still looked like a formality. His opponent, Jaeger, was 15 feet away. When Jaeger missed, Scheffler's shortstop looked like a classic putt as the No. 1 player in the world filled in and returned to the playoff field for his third straight victory and his first on tour in seven years. But golf is difficult. Scheffler tied the score, but missed a left low ball and missed the tying goal. He handed the victory to Jaeger.
"I didn't think things would change much," he said later. "I tried to hit it straight, but it seemed to start right in the middle and break quite hard, so it was just a mistake."
It was Scheffler's only missed shot from inside 7 feet on the weekend.
"We intend to move forward as soon as possible," Scheffler added. “Obviously, I’m a little disappointed at the moment because it’s one thing to get out there. I just misread it. I don't know why I misunderstood, but that's part of the game. I felt like I probably could have hit it with more speed and hit a good shot like I was aiming for, but it just didn't work out.
The failure ended a "strange off week" for Scheffler, who finished tied for second after five games. Scheffler's runner-up finish at the Houston Open was his seventh top-10 in eight starts this season, with 11 and 17 top-10 finishes over the past two seasons, respectively, and second place was American Express' T17. was. After missing an unusual three-putt on the 6-foot 18th on Friday, Scheffler shot a 66 but left four or five shots on the green just inside the back nine on Saturday. He got a birdie on the par-4 13th despite hitting a high tee shot. Then, in the 15th minute, his approach shot on a 121-yard par-3 left the green less than 10 feet from the hole and fell into water for a double.
"I fought well. I felt like I had a weird break this week," Scheffler said. "It's hard to explain in words, but obviously I'm a little disappointed. On the 18th I hit a couple of really good shots to give myself a chance and I made the putt and went up and broke. feel like. "It's a little disappointing, but Stefan played great this week and deserves to be champion."
Scotty Scheffler is, after all, a human being.
Post a Comment