Scottie Scheffler continues to hit the ball as well as anyone from tee to green, yet he remains frustrated with his performance through 36 holes at The Players.
Why?
His putting.
“Regarding the frustration, yeah, for instance, the last two days I felt like I could have scored a lot better,” said Scheffler, who is currently at 5-under and six shots off the lead.
“The amount of good putts I hit that just went right around the hole, whether it be slight misreads, or I think about my putt there on No. 9, [my caddy] Teddy [Scott] and I had a really good read on it, turned a little left early, came back to the right at the end. The grain’s going to the right, there’s a gentle slope going to the right, my ball goes the other way.”
Scheffler had another solid look for birdie on the par-5 9th, his last hole of the day, but it did not drop. Burning edges and failing to convert opportunities has been a common theme for the World No. 1 in 2025. It echoes what Scheffler had to endure over the first two months of 2024, before he switched to a mallet putter ahead of last year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. Scheffler then went on to win that event, and eight others during his historic season.
“At times last year those were the putts that would go in, and the last few weeks seem like they haven’t been,” Scheffler said.
“But still doing a lot of good things, hitting a lot of good putts and looking forward to trying to climb the leaderboard over the weekend.”
Scheffler ranks fifth among the field in strokes gained on approach but has surprisingly lost strokes off the tee at the midway point. Despite that, he has still given himself plenty of chances, hitting 27 of 36 greens thus far. But he has made only nine birdies.
“I don’t have to play perfect golf in order to try to win tournaments, and sometimes I try to lean on that a little bit when I’m out there,” Scheffler added.
“But I talk about it a lot. Last year was last year. This year’s a totally different year.”
Scheffler, the two-time defending champion at The Players this week, overcame a five-shot deficit on Sunday to win last year. He knows he can come back and win again, but his putter must improve over the weekend.
The winds are forecasted to blow up to 30 miles per hour on Saturday, which will be a tremendous challenge, even on the greens.
“The golf course was definitely gettable the first two days,” Scheffler said.
“I wasn’t able to take advantage of it the way I would have hoped to, but yeah, going into tomorrow and Sunday, there will definitely be some opportunity there with the conditions changing.”
Despite not playing as well as he would have liked, Scheffler still has an outside chance to pull off an unthinkable feat: winning The Players three times in a row. It will take a Herculean effort, but if he can get his putter to cooperate for the first time all season, Scheffler will be there Sunday, invoking fear into everyone else in the field.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
