Scottie Scheffler lets go of his driver during the second round of the 2024 U.S. Open. | Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is in danger of missing the cut at the U.S. Open, a shocking development that many did not expect.
Scottie Scheffler did not look like the best player in the world on Friday at the U.S. Open.
Far from it, actually.
He did not make a single birdie during his second round at Pinehurst No. 2, the first time he failed to do so all season. But his inability to make birdie putts did not disparage his chances of making the cut.
His play on the par-5 5th hole did.
After finding the fairway off the tee, Scheffler had 262 yards left into this back-left hole location. He decided to give it a go, as he sat at 3-over for the championship at the time and needed to make a move.
But the aggressive decision backfired, as Scheffler missed the green left—an absolute no-go for anyone who plays this hole, which, ironically enough, ranks as the easiest on the course. Scheffler’s ball found the left side of the green and then rolled down the slope, settling into the sandy native area and nestling among some shrubbery. Funny enough, his fellow playing competitors—Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy—suffered the same fate.
With his ball farthest away, Scheffler went first and duffed his chip up the slope. His Titleist 7 then returned right back to his feet. A double-bogey now stared him right in the face.
On his second attempt, Scheffler rifled it over the green, giving himself a difficult chip shot from the right side of the putting surface. He failed to get up and down from there, thus penciling in an abhorrent double-bogey seven on his scorecard.
“I think that’s part of the mystery of the sandy areas. You get down there, and it’s kind of luck of the draw whether or not you have a shot,” Scheffler explained after.
“Preferably, I would have loved to have hit a little runner out of there, but I had a bush in my way to where I couldn’t play the runner that I would have hoped to. Really, all you’re trying to do from there is get it up onto the green somewhere, and I felt like I took the best route I could think of at first, but it’s so unpredictable.”
The 5th hole spiraled him down to 5-over for the championship, where he ultimately finished. Scheffler signed for a 4-over 74 and ranked dead last in strokes gained putting during the Friday morning wave. He missed good look after good look, similar to what he did earlier in the year—before he went on a Tiger Woods-like run and won five events in a three-month span.
Nevertheless, Scheffler still has a chance to make it to the weekend, but he will need some help. Players will need to struggle on Friday afternoon, even more so than he did, for the World No. 1 to earn a Saturday tee time.
Nobody figured that we would be discussing whether or not Scheffler would make the cut, especially since the conversation leading up to the week was whether or not Scheffler would win. But here we are, as the U.S. Open takes no prisoners.
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.
