Scottie Scheffler Shares His Lone Criticism Of Pinehurst After Struggling At U.S. Open

Heading into the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, Scottie Scheffler was playing at a level the golf world hadn't seen since prime Tiger Woods. In his eight starts leading into the year's third major, Scheffler had earned five wins and had only been beaten by a total of nine players.

If one had to circle a tournament and course setup that would potentially slow down the 27-year-old, it would be an extremely firm U.S. Open at Pinehurst, and that's exactly what happened. For the first time in 2024, Scheffler actually looked human on a golf course finishing T-41 at eight-over par. It marks the first time Scheffler has finished worse than T-17 in a tournament since August 2023.

While Scheffler's putter didn't cooperate, neither did his driver as he hit just 61% of fairways for the week. Missing fairways at Pinehurst No. 2 is not a recipe for success given each one is lined by areas filled with sand, bushes, and dozens of variations of grass.

It's a crapshoot as to whether you draw a lie that is playable or one that will force you to hit your ball out sideways and swallow your pride, which is the one criticism Scheffler had for last week's U.S. Open venue.

"When I'm not playing my best I feel like one of my skills is kind of managing my way around the golf course knowing where the misses are. When you have pretty much a coin flip on whether or not you're going to have a swing or not there's not really a side of the fairway to miss it on, there are not really areas you can play to, you just have to hit great golf shots," Scheffler told the media ahead of this week's Travelers Championship. 

"And when you're not hitting it great, you know, I feel like that's why I'm usually able to compete when I don't have my best stuff is the way I kind of manage my way around the golf course, and last week you're just not able to do that, just with the nature of the grass. Because you could hit it a foot off the fairway and be in a bush, and you could hit it 20 yards off the fairway and have a perfect lie that you're -- and it plays like you're in the fairway. So that part of the course I didn't love, but tee to green -- fairway -- sorry, I should say fairway to greens, I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was a great test of golf."

Scottie Scheffler had just one criticism to offer up about Pinehurst No. 2. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

From a player's standpoint, anyone can understand why Scheffler and plenty of other players in the field weren't exactly fans of the coin-flip aspect of missing fairways. From a fan perspective, however, it made the tournament that much more exciting.

Each time a player hit a drive offline you were concerned about what type of lie they may draw. We saw it with Bryson DeChambeau missing nine fairways during Sunday's final round but drawing a great lie far more often than not.

Pinehurst was a true test from tee to green. So many other major championship venues only expose one, maybe two aspects of play while Pinehurst forces players to earn every shot from the moment they step on the course until the moment they leave it.