SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — The image of Scottie Scheffler at Royal Birkdale might be the world's No. 1 player missing one birdie chance after another to waste a great week from tee-to-green in the British Open.
All he could think about Sunday when he finished were the bounces that didn't go his way.
Scheffler managed to stay in the game until the very end and capitalized on a huge break — which followed another unfortunate bounce — with a birdie on the par-5
17th hole. Needing birdie to have any chance of a playoff, he missed a putt from off the green, missed the par putt that followed and settled for a 3-under 67 to tie for fourth behind Ryan Fox.
“I guess it just wasn't my week,” said Scheffler, who had top 4-finishes in three of the four majors.
Scheffler, who began the final round six shots out of the lead, quickly made up ground with three birdies in five holes — as many birdies as he had made in the previous two rounds combined. And when he holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the 12th, he was at 8 under and closing.
And then he was chasing after a few frustrating bounces.
His tee shot right of the fairway on the 13th headed for the wispy grass but wound up in a deep hole, leaving him no chance but to advance it about 5 feet. Scheffler did well to make an 8-foot putt to escape with bogey.
Scheffler thought his drive was ideal on the par-5 14th until it bounced just enough to the left to catch a pot bunker, leaving him no shot at the green. A potential birdie turned into par.
“That stuff hurts,” he said. "My ball on 13 goes into that hole. It wasn’t my best tee shot, but it was a time where I needed to be aggressive, and I saw some good stuff happening with guys that hit the ball over there the last few days, and it didn’t happen for me today. Just those little bounces.
“My ball on 14 I think is in the fairway, I come up there, it’s in the pot bunker,” he said. “Little stuff like that over the course of the week tends to add up.”
His frustration boiled over on the par-5 17th when his tee shot moving left-to-right looked as though it would kick into the fairway leaving him a shot at the green. But it bounced left and stayed in the rough in front of a steep mound.
“WHY?” Scheffler screamed at himself. “Why does this happen?”
Welcome to links golf, which he conquered a year ago at Royal Portrush.
Remarkably, the bad bounce led to birdie. He tried to go over the mound and the ball went so far to the left that he figured it was never to be found, He hit a provisional for a lost ball, and that wasn't much better, And then luck seemed to finally show up.
The entire area near a massive hospitality structure was deemed a temporary immovable obstruction. Spectators said they saw the ball disappear into gorse and rough. A security guard and NBC reporter John Wood began searching.
But once a golf ball has been identified going into the TIO, it does not have to be found.
“We tried to figure it out. I said: ‘If I find it, does that help me? Can I drop it since that would be about 50 yards closer to the hole?'” Scheffler said about his conversation with the rules official. “He said, ‘Yes, you can then use that spot, but you might have to go to the other side of the TIO.’ I didn’t know exactly where that would be, and that’s not a great angle coming across there. So I decided to drop the search.”
Scheffler received a free drop 94 yards away on a baked, dusty lie. He hit wedge to 10 feet and made birdie.
The hope didn't last long, and he walked off the 18th green knowing he would not get his hands on the claret jug he won last year, and it would be eight-plus months before the next major.
“I felt like this was a week I played a lot better than my score,” Scheffler said. “Thirteen and 14 really hurt, not being able to advance the ball. I feel good that I could compete when things weren't going my way.”
Padraig Harrington remains the last player to win back-to-back in the British Open, in 2007 and 2008. It's the longest such stretch in the majors. And now it falls to Fox near year at St. Andrews.
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