All Scottie Scheffler might do was stare.
His second shot, out of the bunker, on the seventh gap Sunday had hit the inexperienced and, in traditional Shinnecock Hills Golf Membership model, did a U-turn, rolling again into the sand. Scheffler ended up bogeying the opening, and it marked the newest missed likelihood in a spherical stuffed with them for Scheffler — turning a thirtieth birthday that would’ve been a couple of profession Grand Slam on Father’s Day into one which left him with what-ifs.
Loads of the hype constructing forward of Sunday revolved round Scheffler and the run he might make whereas chasing Wyndham Clark. He’d appeared to have solved the course over the again 9 Saturday and will’ve been even nearer than the six strokes he trailed by in the beginning of the spherical. However Scheffler settled for 1 over Sunday and even for the match, ending in a tie for fourth — with J.T. Poston and Keith Mitchell — and 4 pictures behind Clark, who gained his second U.S. Open in 4 years.
“I felt like I did sufficient to have a very good spherical,” Scheffler stated. “It was simply, man, I felt like I hit a whole lot of good putts that had been actually near entering into. Simply wasn’t capable of form of gap these.”
The group following Scheffler stored pulling for every of his pictures to hit fairways and greens whereas begging for Clark to finish up in bunkers. There have been chants about his birthday, too. Followers wished the comeback. They wished the historical past.
However Scheffler’s struggles began on the primary gap — when his second shot rolled off the inexperienced and his putt to save lots of par missed — and continued on the seventh, when he misplaced the stroke he’d picked up with a birdie two holes prior. He moved again to 1 beneath with a birdie on the tenth, however he completed his spherical with a bogey and 4 consecutive pars.
So Scheffler’s bid for historical past grew to become a secondary storyline to Sam Burns’ bid for a historic comeback. He wasn’t the one threatening, actually, as Clark stumbled. This wasn’t as shut a name because the U.S. Open in 2022, when he completed in a tie for second, one shot behind Matt Fitzpatrick, but it surely was winnable — particularly when Clark began collapsing.
As a substitute, Scheffler was left questioning about his first spherical — an space the place he has struggled lately — and his 72 from Thursday, as his bid for the profession milestone was placed on maintain for a minimum of another 12 months.
“On the finish of the day, I used to be making an attempt to maneuver my manner up the leaderboard,” Scheffler stated. “I’ve perception that if Wyndham shot even par right this moment, I believed that I might catch him. It’s only a matter of executing the pictures.
“… I used to be shut [Sunday], however not the place it wanted to be.”
