Scottie Scheffler smiles during the second round of the 2024 Memorial Tournament. | Photo by Ian Johnson/Getty Images
Scottie Scheffler has once again showed why he is the best player in the world, as he holds the 36-hole lead at the Memorial.
Scottie Scheffler never ceases to amaze.
On a blustery day that made PGA Tour players look foolish, Scheffler made things look easy. He paraded around Muirfield Village, making four birdies and a brilliant eagle on the par-5 15th to card a 4-under 68 at the Memorial Tournament.
“Around this golf course, especially when the winds are up, just because have you so many trees that block it and when it’s gusty, it can be really challenging and start blowing from directions where it’s not quite supposed to at times,” Scheffler explained.
“That’s another one of the challenges of playing this golf course. But I felt like we did a good job today of executing and putting ourselves in the right spots out there.”
Perhaps nobody has executed better this week than what Scheffler did on 15.
He pounded his drive right down the middle of the fairway and then stuck a 3-iron from 238 yards to about nine feet. Scheffler then rolled it in for an eagle to get back to 8-under, reinstilling his two-shot advantage that he briefly surrendered with bogies on the 11th and 13th holes.
“It was just a nice hold 3-iron. I felt like I had a good number, and it’s nice when I have a number where I want to cut it, and the pin’s on the right, and that was one of those instances,” Scheffler said of his approach into 15.
“So I was able to hit a really nice shot in there pretty close to the pin and hole the putt.”
Scheffler entered the day trailing Adam Hadwin by a stroke at 5-under. But Hadwin went out and shot an even-par 72 in the morning, giving Scheffler an opportunity to take full control of the tournament. In fact, Hadwin had gotten his score up to 8-under, but a double-bogey at 17 brought him tumbling back down to six.
Scheffler never made as grave an error as that, even though he played sloppily between holes 10 and 13. He made an incredible par-save at the 10th, holing a 16-footer to do so. Then, on the par-5 11th, Scheffler knocked his third shot into the front bunker and failed to get up and down.
Two holes later, Scheffler had a horrible lie just off the fairway, which led to his second bogey in a three-hole span. But then he showed everyone why he is the best player in the world at 15, making it look easy.
He then went on to cap his round with a beautiful birdie on the 18th, despite putting his drive into the right fairway bunker. It marked the second straight day he birdied the final hole.
And yet, Scheffler refused to describe this game as ‘easy.’
“Easy is definitely not the right word. I feel like what I love about this game is how difficult it is. I love coming out here and competing against the best players in the world on the best golf courses, and this is obviously a pretty challenging track,” Scheffler explained.
“I really just love competing out here, and I don’t really think about whether or not it’s easy or hard, and some days I play good, and some days I don’t, but outside of that, I’m just out here trying to compete.”
Scheffler is now vying for his fifth victory of the season, which includes a win at Augusta National. He definitely loves competing against his fellow tour pros, but do his peers like competing against him?
Probably not.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
