One Statistic From Scottie Scheffler's First Round At The Open Should Terrify The Rest Of The Field
Scheffler did not have his A-game off of the tee in round one of The Open.
Scottie Scheffler posted a three-under 68 in his opening round of The Open and will likely begin Friday's second round on the first page of the leaderboard.
Nothing is unexpected about the No. 1 player in the world putting himself firmly in contention on Day 1 of a major, but how he managed to do it, well, that's another story.
Scheffler entered the week well above average in driving accuracy, hitting fairways off the tee 63.2% of the time this season. That piece of his game was missing in a major way Thursday at Royal Portrush.
Scheffler only hit three of 14 fairways (21.4%) in Round 1. That number is even more stunning considering that he only hit his driver off the teebox eight total times.
Royal Portrush allows players to club down on the tee on many holes, which Scheffler opted to do, yet still couldn't find any sort of rhythm. It's also a golf course that is playable if misses off of the tee aren't too severe, but wayward teeshots are penalized with nasty lies in native grass. Scheffler hit 11 of 18 greens on Thursday.
Now, you can look at Scheffler shooting three-under with only three hit fairways two ways.
On one hand, you could argue that Scheffler shooting 68 despite not having anywhere close to his A-game off of the tee means that luck was on his side on Thursday and that sort of trend isn't sustainable for him if he wants to contend over the weekend.
On the other hand, you have to think it can't get worse for Scheffler off the tee and the best player in the world will figure out how to hit quite a few more fairways over the next three rounds.
From that perspective, every player in the field has to be even more concerned than they typically are about Scheffler being the guy to beat as the stage gets brighter with the weekend approaching.