Down the Stretch Magic: Scheffler’s Birdie Run Keeps Him in Contention

Scottie Scheffler delivered when it mattered most, turning a steady round into something special with a clutch birdie run on the closing holes. After 13 straight pars on a tough course, Scheffler capitalized on scoring opportunities at just the right time, draining key putts on 14, 15, 17, and 18 to post a 68 and stay firmly in the hunt. In this interview, he breaks down his mindset, strategy, and execution down the stretch — plus offers praise for Ben Griffin and reflects on the grind of elite competition.

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that was quite a closing kick you put on there can you talk about um how you how you executed that yeah I mean there’s opportunity there on 14 and 15 um and 13 if if you’re in the fairway you know the with the wind direction we had today those holes are downwind and so there’s some good opportunities there for for birdie you know 15 being a reachable par five and um I just had a lot of really good shots down the stretch you know in the fairway from from 13 on which is important and gave myself a lot of good looks and was able to hold some there hold two really nice putts there on 17 18 um and a really good one on 14 as well you know I felt like where the pins were today there was so much break around the cup and um you know I felt like I was putting from 20 feet a lot on the front i’m playing like three feet a break sometimes and it’s uh it was challenging out there the first 13 holes all pars how what was your kind of mindset through those through those holes uh I thought I was doing pretty good um I mean around this golf course even par I think today would have been a pretty solid score and um you know like I said I felt like I could have gotten a little bit more out of the round but felt like I was playing nice and um you know just a couple lips here and there would have changed changed the score a little bit but overall I felt like I was doing good stuff so I didn’t really feel like I needed to change much i think at one point Ben was up five he was 10 under you even aware of that at all or does I’m assuming it doesn’t affect your play at all yeah I mean I I did see that Ben got to 10 under but like you said it’s not going to change um you know my play in the middle of a Saturday you know um this golf course is really challenging and and no lead safe around this place and I knew if I you know kept going and played a decent round I would be in somewhat of a position to to chase him down tomorrow like if he’s sitting there at 10 under and you know if he gets to 12 or 13 you know I mean there’s not much I can do about that so not really going to change my my mindset trying to get to 12 under when I’m sitting at four you know that’s not really going to do me a lot of justice so just try to keep plotting along and um you hit some good shots and was able to have a nice finish jordan Spe said he thinks you have the best club face control ever when you hear something like that from a peer is that obviously you take it in stride or Yeah I mean that’s that’s a nice compliment you know I work hard on on trying to control my golf ball and um hitting a lot of different types of shots and you know I have some interesting footwork in my swing and um you know sometimes I feel like I have really good control of the face and then other times it feels like I’m swinging a foreign object but um yeah how much time have you spent with Ben Griffin through the years i know you’re the same age but did you cross paths yeah yeah we played a lot of junior golf together um he played at UNCC I played at Texas so we didn’t see each other too much in college but I felt like we played a lot of junior golf together and saw each other at you know the amateur circuit throughout the summer you know a lot of those tournaments and so I’ve known Ben for a long time and he always he always had a lot of talent he had a very interesting swing growing up and you know he’s made some pretty significant changes to his swing over the years and um you know has been one of those guys that always had a lot of talent and he’s done a really good job of continuing to improve and you know the results are uh speaking for themselves at this point interesting swing kind of what in what way well he used to have a really strong grip and a very shut face at the top that was almost a little bit like across the line and it was um just an interesting motion and um he wasn’t the best ball striker in junior and amateur golf and he’s turned into a really good ball striker just through making swing changes and a lot of hard work and so you always tip your cap when you see a guy that puts in a ton of effort and gets a lot out of it i mean that’s it’s always really fun for us as players to watch and you’ll love seeing those types of guys have success tiger is the only one to win backtoback here what would it mean if you did it to win this back to back yeah I mean it’d be nice but at the end of the day you know last year’s tournament is last year’s tournament doesn’t really matter going into this year we’ve got a opportunity tomorrow um to have a good round and hopefully win the tournament and you know I’ll be focused on the first TE i’m just trying to get that ball in play and uh going from there how good was your 68 today on this course in today’s conditions i mean it was pretty good i I don’t know what the the scoring average was today but I was definitely proud of the way I finished and um I mean it was really challenging like through you know 13 holes I felt like I was playing really good and I was only even par and um I mean it’s just a hard golf course conditions changed throughout the day from start to the end of the round for you uh the wind got a touch calmer the last few holes um maybe it just felt calmer because we were playing downwind but um overall I mean it was just pretty gusty and challenging the whole day thanks all right thanks Scotty