Scottie Scheffler arrived at the Open Championship with a burden of expectations. He won the Open last year and nearly completed a Grand Slam at the U.S. Open. Fans expect him to dominate links courses again. And for that, he had to start with a Scheffler-like opening round and not the Thursday scores he had throughout 2026. But was he able to achieve that? In most parts, yes.
After starting on the front nine at 9:58 am local time, Scheffler opened with par saves, then caught fire with back-to-back birdies on 2-3 and 5-6 before a costly bogey on the par-3 7th. His second shot on the par-3 7th was too aggressive, landing on the fringe and costing him a bogey. Until then, Scheffler had the solo lead. The back nine proved tougher.
He couldn't make any birdies, and on top of that a bogey on 17 tempered an otherwise dominant display. He finished R1 with a two-under 68 and tied for 10th on the leaderboard. In fact, he is just two strokes short of the co-leaders Sungjae Im and Daniel Brown as of publishing. The catch, however, is that there are a few golfers yet to finish their rounds.
Speaking about the bogey on the 17th hole, the World No. 1 said, I was just shocked at how deep the ball was in that grass. It looked like a lot of good spots around there, and then all of a sudden you get to one area where my ball is—I considered actually taking an unplayable. I didn't think I was going to be able to get the ball out of the grass that it was sitting in, but was able to get it out."
Scheffler's driving was the story. His 341-yard highest and 315-yard average driving distance outpaced his season norm by 3.3 yards, while his 92.9% accuracy shattered his 65.31% season average. Apart from his driving, his approach was noteworthy, while his putting had mixed moments.
He drained a 43-foot putt for birdie on 6 but missed a four-footer on 17 for bogey—a tale of two halves. According to Justin Ray, Scheffler gained over 2.23 strokes in putting in the first six holes. However, he lost over two strokes in the next 12 holes. Another thing he would have liked to improve today was his around-the-green game. Scheffler ranked 29th in scrambling on Thursday at Royal Birkdale.
Fans were expecting to find out if last week's missed cut would have affected Scottie Scheffler. But instead of being frustrated because of that, he was calm. This composure was in his pre-round press conference, where he gave another philosophical answer, just like last year's Open Championship.
"I feel at peace, yeah. I think sometimes it's not like—it's never the best thing to miss a cut, but like I said, sometimes having a couple days off, resetting, getting some time away—throughout the year, it's like—when you look at other sports and if you look at a football team that's made it really far each year in the NFL, it's really hard to continue to do that each and every year," he said .
It looks like the peace is helping him stay calm, unlike in other majors this year, when he looked frustrated and was even having intense discussions with his team .
What would be exciting to watch is whether Scheffler can maintain that peace tomorrow and improve his position or miss the chance to defend the title. He signed off with what can be thought of a subtle warning to everyone else: "Golf is played over 72 holes, and I definitely liked what I saw today."
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