Scottie Scheffler had a far bigger problem on day one at The Players than his driver
· Yahoo Sports
Scottie Scheffler’s recent struggles have continued at The Players Championship.
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The world number one has been out of sorts lately, finishing outside of the top 10 in both of his last two events and T24 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week. And things don’t look to be improving in a hurry at The Players.
He shot even par for his first round at TPC Sawgrass, and cut a frustrated figure throughout. He fist pumped a missed putt for par late in the round, and consistently hit drives way right of the fairway.
The biggest narrative surrounding Scheffler has been his poor play off the tee. He was the player who never missed to the right with his driver last year, but has been really struggling with that miss of late.
But diving into the numbers, it’s clear that Scheffler’s biggest weakness in round one of The Players wasn’t actually his driver.
Photo by James Gilbert/Getty ImagesScottie Scheffler was poor with his chipping during round one of The Players
Despite his wayward drives early, Scheffler recovered his play off the tee later in the round and began finding some fairways. In the end, he marginally gained strokes off the tee over the course of his round.
The one area where Scheffler lost strokes to the field was around the green. Scheffler lost -0.92 strokes to the field with his chipping, as he consistently struggled to get up and down throughout his opening round.
Scheffler’s short game has traditionally been his weakness. Usually, he’s laser accurate with his driver, and he’s the best ball striker in the game, but where he’s fallen short is on and around the greens.
It’s obviously not ideal that Scheffler is struggling with his wedge game, but when so much has been made of his ball striking with both his irons and driver, this shows that actually, he’s not too far from his brilliant best.
That’s a worry for the rest of the field at Sawgrass.
Scottie Scheffler has started 2026 better than he started 2025
While there are serious questions being put to Scheffler about his early-season form this year, he’s actually started this season far better than his historic 2025 season.
Not only did he win his first event of the year, the American Express at PGA National, but he’s had three top fives, two more than this stage last season.
Statistically, Scheffler has been playing better, too. Despite his frustrations on the greens, Scheffler’s putting stats are way up from this time last year, despite traditionally struggling in that department on the West Coast.
In fact, every single statistical category, including his driving, is up significantly compared to how he was playing in the early stages of 2025.
Scheffler went on to dominate the PGA Tour after the Masters and was being compared to Tiger Woods, so it’s clear to see why he’s beginning to get a little frustrated with the questions surrounding his form.