PGA Championship: Scottie Scheffler’s Historic Implosion at Southern Hills

This year’s Masters winner Scottie Scheffler struggled greatly this week at Southern Hills and in the process made history.

For World number one Scottie Scheffler, this week did not go as planned after he struggled greatly on a course that he reportedly ‘loves’, and his performance this week at the 2022 PGA Championship was a far cry from that which he displayed in spectacular fashion at Augusta National just last month.

Scheffler was the oddsmaker’s favorite to win his second Major of the year and it was almost unfathomable to imagine that he wouldn’t even be around for the weekend at the start of the week, yet here we are.

The player who had previously put in performances that were borderline tiger-esque over the last couple of months recorded consecutive rounds over par for the first time in 2022 as Justin Ray of the Twenty First Group pointed out.

Last month Scottie Scheffler made history, this week he also made history but for an entirely different reason. Should the Masters winner go on to miss the cut at this week’s PGA Championship he would be just the second World number one to have done so since 1987. Dustin Johnson was the other after he missed the cut at the 2021 PGA Championship last year. Ironically Dustin Johnson also finished his 2021 PGA Championship at six-over-par.

Scheffler was right on the projected cutline of +4 according to Data Golf when he made his way to the par 4, 9th, his closing hole for the day. Scottie would find the fairway bunker with his drive before then proceeding to three-putt on the green for an eventual double bogey. The costly double dropped him to +6 for the tournament, a result that will in all likelihood not be good enough to stick around for the weekend.

You have to go all the way back to the Shriners Open last year to find the last time that Scottie missed a cut. The Masters Champion would then go on to record seven top 5 finishes, a run that includes his incredible four wins already in 2022.

As for his performances in Majors? you have to go back to 2019 at the U.S. Open to find the last time he missed a cut in a Major Championship. Scottie Scheffler has missed just two cuts in Majors and both came at the U.S. Open in 2019 and 2016. It looks increasingly likely that he will be adding to that number this week at the PGA Championship.