DUBLIN, Ohio — Scottie Scheffler came out of a bunker on the green and fell into the water. He hit a tee shot over a boundary fence and made triple bogey. He three-putted on his last hole. All that, and he shot a 1-under 71 and increased his lead Saturday at the Memorial.
In his final start before the US Open, Scheffler took control despite a couple of mistakes on a tough Muirfield Village course. He still built a 4-stroke lead, moving closer to his fifth PGA Tour victory of the year.
Scheffler was at 10-under 206, 4 strokes ahead of Collin Morikawa, who played bogey-free for a 68, and Adam Hadwin, who made all his mistakes on one hole and shot 72.
Scheffler responded with a birdie after his two penalty shots, and Muirfield was tough enough to never lose the lead, even after the triple bogey.
“He did a good job resetting and recovering,” Scheffler said. “I had a nice birdie on 10 and 12 and did a good job keeping us in the round today.”
Morikawa will be in the final group with Scheffler, just as he was at the Masters. He is a former champion at Muirfield Village and won the Workday Charity Open in 2020 when the course Jack Nicklaus built hosted back-to-back tournaments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I'll still have to go out and get a really good score tomorrow,” Morikawa said. “But this course bites. You can see some of these holes as birdie opportunities, but if you miss the fairway, you'll be trying to save par.”
Scheffler can appreciate that.
Starting with a 3-shot lead, he made two quick birdies and was already starting to pull away until his second shot at the par-5 fifth drifted right into a bunker, leaving him 45 yards over another bunker and across the green to the flag. .
“I just caught it a little thin,” he said, and the ball went a long way: over the green, over the rough and into the creek as it went. He made an 8-foot putt just to avoid bogey, and with Hadwin holing a 30-foot eagle putt, the lead was cut to 2.
On the next hole, Scheffler was in a fairway bunker and hit the pitching wedge over the water 7 feet in front of a pin on a crown, making birdie.
The real problem came on No. 9 when Scheffler hit his tee shot and hit a tree with such force that it bounced to the left, over a fence and out of bounds. He reloaded and fired his next shot into the right gross, with a tall tree blocking his path to a right back pin.
“It seemed like an unnecessary risk,” he said of passing under a smaller tree versus the big one. She laid down the first cut, chased a wedge to 15 feet and missed the putt.
That left him tied with Hadwin, but only as long as it took Scheffler to hit an 8-iron to a back pin on the 10th hole for birdie, and he was on his way. He also birdied the terrifying par-3 12th over the water, a shot made difficult by gusty winds, and his lead returned to 5 strokes with a birdie on the par-5 15th.
Hadwin stayed within range until he caught a wedge so thick it missed the green on the 14th. He shot to about 15 feet and three-putted for double bogey. The bogey on the 18th was his only other mistake.
Defending champion Viktor Hovland also stayed within range until an atrocious back nine began with a shot into the water on the par-5 11th that led to a bogey. He went long on the 12th due to bogey, short on the 13th due to bogey and long into the back bunker on the 14th due to bogey.
Hovland then hit his tee shot into the water on the par-3 16th for a triple bogey, shooting 42 on the back nine and finding himself 9 shots off the lead.
Rory McIlroy, who spent more than four hours on a Zoom call for PGA Tour Enterprises' meeting with LIV Golf's Saudi sponsors on Friday afternoon, carded a 73 to fall 8 behind.
This is Scheffler's tournament now, although he still has to contend with a Muirfield Village course that is getting drier, windier and tougher. Scheffler has four wins this year, but has never reached the final round with a lead of more than 1 stroke.
“I'm going to go out tomorrow and try to play a good round of golf, keep my head down and stay in my own little world,” Scheffler said. “I'm not really going to pay attention to what other people are doing. I'm just going to try to do the best I can.”
