World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler bravely battled his way through a nagging neck strain to keep himself in contention to successfully defend his Players Championship title.
Scheffler, 27, began receiving attention soon into his second round and revealed after handing in his card that he had strained his neck when hitting his tee shot off the 12th hole.
Scheffler had parred the 12th and had a physio working on his neck ahead of teeing-off the 13th however, after birdieing the 13th hole and then having the honour on the 14th tee, he suggested to his two playing partners Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas for to go ahead and tee-off while he continued getting attention.
At this time, Scheffler spoke to a rules official and it’s understood he asked if he could seek relief for the pain.
Scheffler parred 14 but bogeyed 15 ahead of another neck massage on the tee at the par-5 16th, the easiest hole of the course and despite a poor tee shot and an equally poor second shot to the left of the green but getting up-and-own from 11-feet for a third birdie of his round.
Scheffler went on to shoot a very gutsy three-under 69 that moved him into the clubhouse share of fourth place at eight-under six shots behind Wyndham Clark, who signed for second score of 65 and lead by five shots at 14-under.
Scheffler spoke afterwards to confirm the nature of the injury.
“Yeah, I hit a shot on my second hole today and I felt a little something in my neck, and then I tried to hit my tee shot on 12, and that’s when I could barely get the club back,” he said.
“So I got some treatment, maybe it loosened up a tiny bit, but most of the day I was pretty much laboring to get the club somehow away from me”.
Fortunately, Scheffler has almost a day before teeing-up in his third round to have the niggling injury treated.
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