Amid a chilly rain at Muirfield Village on Friday, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler began his round with a solid birdie look from 23 feet away on the par-4 1st.
He stepped up and drained it, perhaps signaling that his putter would cooperate for the remainder of the day. Short birdie makes on the 3rd and 5th holes followed, which improved Scheffler’s score to 5-under for the championship. He was off and running, hoping he would catch Ben Griffin, who held the lead at 7-under.
Then his putter went ice cold.
He missed a birdie try from inside 10 feet on the 6th hole. An eight-foot birdie look on the 7th then slipped past the cup. Scheffler then stuck his approach on the par-3 8th to five feet away, but he could not convert that either.
“If I holed a few more putts, I probably would have had a little bit of a different score,” Scheffler quipped after posting a 2-under 70 for the second straight day.
Two holes after his short miss on the 8th, on the par-4 10th, Scheffler three-putted for a double-bogey six. It was his 15th three-whack of the 2025 season and the first since last Friday at Colonial. He three-putted the 14th green early in his round then.
But Scheffler rallied with a birdie on the par-5 11th. He then made another birdie on the par-4 12th, further evidence that nobody ‘bounces back’ like he does.
For the third consecutive season, Scheffler ranks second on the PGA Tour in Bounce Back Percentage, or the rate in which a player makes a birdie immediately after making a bogey or worse. He has done so at a 33-percent clip in 2025 while the tour average is around 21-percent.
“Doubling the hole before a par-5 always helps,” Scheffler said with a chuckle.
“No, I mean, what am I going to do on 11 to affect what happened on 10? So if I get up there and make a poor swing because I’m frustrated, that’s going to make me even more frustrated, so I might as well try and make a good swing. It’s really just as simple as that.”
Perhaps that is another reason why Scheffler has been the best player in the world over the last four seasons. His mental toughness is remarkable and draws comparisons to that of Tiger Woods in his prime.
He employs that same mentality on the greens too, always treating every putt with the utmost importance. Confidence radiates from him as well, even when he seems to burn every edge.
“I had some good looks on the front nine that I didn’t hole, but on the back, I rolled it really nice,” Scheffler said.
“I think I was 1-under through 10 after a sloppy double on 10, and then I played pretty good from there to the house to get to that 2-under.”
After making birdies on the 11th and 12th, Scheffler dunked his second shot into the water that sits next to the 14th green. He made a bogey there, dropping back to 4-under for the tournament.
A birdie try from 13 feet on the 15th then fell helplessly to the right, leaving Scheffler to tap-in for par on Muirfield Village’s final par-5. Three more pars followed, as Scheffler walked off the golf course ranking 50th among the field in strokes gained putting.
And yet, the World No. 1 is lurking, sitting three shots off the lead.
“Solid day,” Scheffler said despite his putting woes.
“I felt like I was hitting my lines out there. Hit lot more fairways today. Definitely felt better with my ball striking. So overall, 2-under in these conditions was definitely not a bad score today.”
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