As weird as it sounds, Scottie Scheffler would have been fairly pleased with his round of 72 in the end on day one at the US Open.
Scheffler played poorly in general on Thursday at Shinnecock Hills, and at one point midway through his opening round, he seemed destined to shoot a score in the high 70s.
However, the 29-year-old is world number one for a reason, and he battled hard to eventually post a round of two-over.
Scottie Scheffler has been nowhere near his best this season, and that theme continued on day one of the US Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Scheffler struggled during his US Open practice rounds at Shinnecock, and his swing just isn’t quite right at the moment.
The world number one’s iron play was really poor on Thursday at the US Open, and he was ranked 132nd in strokes gained approach, having lost 1.33 strokes to the field.
Scottie Scheffler admits how he feels after shooting 72 on day one at the US Open
Scheffler addressed the media at Shinnecock Hills on Thursday.
And he responded when asked to sum up how he’s feeling about his opening score of 72.
“Any time you get conditions like this, I think the scores are going to be high. I think that’s — it’s an interesting golf course. Part of the challenge so far is judging the conditions as well, judging how this course is going to play.
“I feel like this course can change pretty rapidly from day to day. I think that’s also part of the challenge of the tournament is adjusting to those conditions.
“I think it’s a little easier sometimes in a U.S. Open because it’s happening to everybody. Today it felt like a day where a lot of good shots were going to get punished is what it felt like. You had to be hitting a great shot if you wanted to avoid a punishment. I think good would put you in some tough spots.
“Overall, yeah, it was a really challenging day. If you told me when I was staring at my par putt on 9 that I would post 2-over today, I would definitely have taken it at the time.
“Overall it was a good battle. Get some rest, and we’ll see how the course changes over the next day.“
Scottie Scheffler comments on the setup at Shinnecock Hills
Scheffler responded when asked what he really made of the way that the USGA set up the golf course on Thursday.
“I would say the greens were maybe a little softer than I expected, but I think with the wind that was forecasted, you’ve got to — you always want to err on the side of caution,“ he said.
“I think the last thing that they wanted was having balls blowing off greens. So they might have put a little extra juice on them last night to slow them down.
“Most of the greens have all been fine. I think there’s a couple greens where there’s so much pitch that you get the wind going down the slope, it can roll off pretty easily. I would say it was probably maybe a little softer than I thought. Just I had imagined it would be firm and slow, I guess.
“We were going out early. When it was foggy, I was trying to get a good judge for how much — or how much shorter the ball would go with the moisture on it, especially into the wind. After the fog kind of cleared, the ball started drying up. I don’t feel like the conditions changed too much. It was just windy.“
