When his 20-footer slid by in the second round of the 2022 FedEx St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind, Scottie Scheffler had the weekend off for just the third time in a breakout year that saw him claim his first PGA Tour victory, ascent to world number one, and claim his first major title when crushing the field at Augusta National.
Close to four years, 78 PGA Tour starts, another Green Jacket, a Wanamaker Trophy, a Claret Jug, and 16 PGA Tour wins later, he’s still waiting for his next unplanned Saturday off.
But that wait looks near certain to end as he sits outside the projected cut mark at the Genesis Scottish Open after completing his second round.
He didn’t have his ‘A’ game on day one, but he still managed to grind out a two-under 68 that left him tied for 27th, which is testament to what is arguably his sharpest weapon; mental toughness.
And at one-over for his second round through 16 and short-sided in a greenside bunker, likely needing to get up-and-down and to, at the very least, par the last to keep that streak running, it looked as though he was going to have to draw on every ounce of that mental fortitude to see him through.
After splashing out to 20 feet, he stayed execution by rolling his putt dead-centre, but there was a reason he was in that greenside bunker in the first place and that is that Scheffler’s iron play has looked decidedly human at times having spent most of the past four years looking anything but.
He had 202 yards into the par-3 ninth – his 18th – which was only seven yards more than he had from the middle of the fairway on the eighth, but where the previous one had squirted right and drawn an exasperated reaction from the world number one, the approach to the ninth had him staring it up and down.
It was on line, but it came up a good eight or nine yards short, and when he failed to hole the chip, he knew that in all likelihood, his 78-tournament streak wouldn’t extend to 79 but he still had a six-footer to address and when that missed on the right side, it dropped him back to level-par for the tournament with the cut likely to fall at either -1 or -2.
By end of play on Friday, unless the wind picks up considerably in the afternoon, his PGA Tour ‘Consecutive Cuts’ tally will revert back to zero, and he’ll pass the baton over to Matt Fitzpatrick who he played the first two rounds alongside.
The Englishman, who ironically was last up on the final tee and did exactly what Scheffler needed to do by getting his distance right and holing the five-footer for birdie, had no cutline worries on the back nine and trails only Jordan Smith at the top of the leaderboard though the late starters, including Rory McIlroy, could push their way past him.
Fitzpatrick’s streak now extends to 28, moving clear of Hideki Matsuyama who isn’t playing this week, but the gulf between his number and the one that Scheffler likely vacates goes to show just how impressive Scheffler’s consistency has been over the past four years.
But even if Fitzpatrick reaches and surpasses Scheffler’s peak of 78, he’ll still have another 63 to go to draw level with Tiger Woods whose 142 consecutive PGA Tour tournaments without missing a cut remains one of the most out of reach records in modern sport.
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