DUBLIN, Ohio — Scottie Scheffler stepped out of a fairway bunker on the 17th hole of his opening round at the Memorial Tournament, and his frustration showed.
Opting for a new club, a 7-iron, the Memorial’s champion the past two years jammed his initial club back into his bag with aggression. He didn’t slam it, exactly, but any weekend duffer could relate to the top-player in the world in that moment at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
Scheffler had just taken a double bogey on the 16th hole, a par-3 into a tricky wind, and his 316-yard drive to start the 17th landed on the beach to the right of the fairway. It was that kind of day for Scheffler, whose sour luck abruptly changed.
Scheffler’s shot from the bunker traveled 177 yards, landed 15 feet, 6 inches from the hole in the short grass off the green, and he chipped in from there for a birdie.
“That one, I kind of hit thin, and you get a good bounce, and I end up on the fringe and I chip in,” Scheffler said. “So, you’re just like, ‘All right.’ What a game. I felt like I didn’t get anything out of the round. All of a sudden, you just get a lucky bounce and you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I’m going to try to smile.’ It’s still hard.”
It could’ve been harder.
Scheffler, who’s trying to become just the second golfer to win the Memorial three straight years, is tied for 33rd after the first round. His work is cut out to catch a lead pack of four golfers at 5 under going into the June 5 second round, but Scheffler is within six shots of the lead.
“Like, this one, is it really that slow of a start?” he said. “How low are the scores this afternoon? You know what I mean? All I can do is compete with kind of the hand I’ve been given, and teeing off last on this golf course is challenging. A day like today, I’m not sure, from where our tee times were, if there was going to be very many low rounds out there.”
Scheffler and Aaron Rai teed off at 1:35 p.m., and only two pairs in the field of 72 teed off later. That’s a lot of time for fast greens to add more speed as they harden, making Jack Nicklaus’ course even more of a bear when combined with occasional wind gusts.
Scheffler and Rai will start the second round at 10:35 a.m., right in the middle of the pairings.
“The wind is just hard to predict,” Scheffler said. “There’s a lot you’ve got to think about, and I think it gets even more challenging when the greens are this firm and the wind is unpredictable, especially on a day where the wind felt like it was going to be lighter, and it was for most of the day. … I think it just shows kind of how tough the golf course is.”
Rai, winner of this year’s PGA Championship, found it just as challenging. He also finished +1, like Scheffler, and trails the lead group of Wyndham Clark, Tommy Fleetwood, Ryan Gerard and J.J. Spaun by six strokes.
“[The greens are] extremely firm,” Rai said. “That’s what we expect from this course. That’s why it’s a pleasure to play here. It’s quite a challenge.”
Especially when shots that initially look good break bad due to course conditions, like what happened to Scheffler on his double-bogey 16th hole. His approach to a 206-yard par 3 landed short of the green and bounced into a water hazard despite feeling like he’d got all of his 7-iron.
“That’s just another really good iron shot, and the wind switched from down off the right to pretty significantly in off the right,” Scheffler said. “All you can do is just try to hit good shots. It can be very frustrating sometimes when you feel like you’re hitting good shots and then you’re going to the drop zone.”
The Golf Channel broadcast picked up Scheffler’s frustration in a heated chat with caddy Ted Scott as they walked to the drop zone.
Scottie Scheffler goes in the water on 16 and some fiery dialogue with Ted Scott ensues. pic.twitter.com/48LoeK8wpd
— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) June 4, 2026
Scheffler battled again to save par on the 18th hole, keeping a fantastic drive in the fairway 328 yards off the tee box, but his approach to the green found another bunker. Getting up and down out of that mess for a par to stay at +1 felt like a fitting end to a difficult start.
“It was just one of those deals where I felt like I was hitting some good shots, really,” Scheffler said. “I made a sloppy swing on [Hole 14] and outside of that, I hit what I felt was a lot of quality iron shots and didn’t really get much for it. I think that that’s the nature of how the golf course is, and kind of how difficult it can get.”
Dispatch reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Scottie Scheffler gets heated after hitting water ball at Memorial
