Scottie Scheffler opened the Genesis Invitational last week tied for last place. Not near the bottom. Last. No name below his in a 72-man field.
He still nearly made the top 10.
That is both the most impressive and most alarming thing about Scheffler’s 2026 season so far. The talent is so deep that even a busted first round can’t fully sink him. But the pattern is real, and heading into the stretch of golf that actually matters, it deserves a serious look.
The Numbers Are Hard to Dismiss
Let’s put it plainly. In his last three stroke-play events before Riviera, Scheffler opened with rounds of 73, 72, and 74. The 73 at the WM Phoenix Open was his first over-par round since June 2025, snapping a streak of 33 consecutive rounds at par or better. At Pebble Beach, he opened 72 and closed 63 with three eagles, finishing fourth when a clean first round probably wins him the tournament.
At Riviera, he went 5-over through his first 10 holes of the tournament, played the first round in conditions that did not separate the field, and made the cut on the number by holing a 7-foot par putt on the final hole.
He has won 20 PGA Tour events. He is the best player in the world by a margin that still isn’t close. Those facts are not in dispute. But when your third straight opening round below the field becomes a storyline before the majors begin, it is worth asking what is actually going on.
What Slow Starts Do to a World Number One
Here is the coaching reality that the highlight clips don’t show. When Scheffler opens a tournament five or six shots behind the leaders, he is not playing the same game as everyone else for the next 54 holes. He is chasing. He is taking different lines, attacking pins he might otherwise leave, and running a different risk calculus than a guy who slept on the lead Thursday night.
That kind of golf can produce a 63 at Pebble. It can also produce a finish outside the top 10 at a venue where he is good enough to win. The floor gets lower when you are always digging out.
The mental side matters too. Sunday golf feels different when you have been leading since Friday. There is a reason the best players in history built their records from the front. Tiger. Jack. Rory in his prime runs. Scheffler knows how to win from behind, but he has not shown us yet in 2026 that he knows how to avoid needing to.
Rory Is Playing a Different Script Right Now
While Scheffler has been clawing, Rory McIlroy has been quietly putting together the most consistent ball-striking stretch he has shown in years.
At Pebble Beach, his game around the greens let him down and he finished tied for 14th. At Riviera, he opened 66-65 with one bogey through 36 holes, shared the lead, and lost the tournament primarily because his putter went cold on Sunday. He lost nearly two strokes on the greens in the final round alone.
Think about that for a second. Rory played 72 holes at one of the most demanding courses on tour, gave himself a legitimate chance to win, and the only thing that beat him was a Sunday putting performance that even he admitted was out of character with the first two days.
He finished tied for second. One stroke back. A single made putt somewhere on the back nine Sunday changes everything.
If you want context on how Rory has handled big moments at the highest level, his iconic shot from 207 yards on the 15th hole at Augusta last year is as good a reminder as any. That kind of shot, in that moment, with a major on the line, does not come from a player who is guessing. It comes from someone who is locked in. The breakdown of that shot tells you a lot about where his head is when the pressure is real.
The Rivalry Angle Everyone Is Watching
Scheffler is the favorite at the Masters at 3-1. Rory is right behind him. That pricing is not accidental. The betting markets are telling you something the weekly coverage sometimes glosses over: these two are operating in a different tier from everyone else right now, and the question is not whether one of them wins the next major, but which one.
What makes the next few weeks so interesting is that their form curves are moving in opposite directions. Scheffler won the American Express in January with a clean, confident closing 66. Since then, the opening rounds have been a problem. Rory has gone the other direction: shaky in Dubai, sharper at Pebble, genuinely elite at Riviera. The trajectory matters.
Bay Hill is next, then the Players, then Augusta. Those are not opposite-field events. Those are the moments where the slow-start problem either gets fixed, or it becomes a real story.
What to Watch Between Now and Augusta
From a coaching standpoint, the opening round is not just a score. It is information. It tells you how a player’s preparation is landing, how his warm-up routine is translating to the first tee, and how his mental state handles the transition from practice to competition.
Scheffler is not struggling. His late-round numbers this season are among the best on tour. But the first-round numbers are also among the worst for anyone near the top of the world rankings, and that gap is worth tracking.
Watch how he starts at Bay Hill. Watch whether he goes out Thursday and puts up a number that lets him play offense all week, or whether he is once again in the position of needing to dig out. One is golf. The other is elite golf. The difference matters more at Augusta than anywhere else on the calendar.
The other thing to watch is Rory’s putter. If the ball-striking form he showed at Riviera holds, and the Sunday putting performance was noise rather than a trend, he is dangerous in a way that the results alone do not fully capture. Two starts on the PGA Tour. Two contending positions. That is a fast track.
My Honest Read
Scheffler is still the best player in the world. That is not a hot take, and one slow stretch does not change it. He is the favorite at every event he enters, and he should be.
But Rory is playing with a confidence right now that reminds me of the version that won the Players last year. He is not waiting for his best golf to show up. He is building toward it event by event. That is a different kind of dangerous.
The next six weeks will tell us everything. Either Scheffler cleans up the opening rounds and takes command heading into Augusta, or he arrives at the first major still searching for the combination that started his 2025 season. One of those outcomes makes him more dominant. The other gives Rory exactly the opening he needs.
Is the slow-start pattern a real problem for Scheffler, or is the final-round 63 the thing we should actually be talking about? Drop your take below.
Clint is PGA-certified and was a Head Teaching Professional at one of Toronto's busiest golf academies. He was also featured on Canada's National Golf TV program, "Score Golf Canada," twice. He graduated with a degree in Golf Management from the College of the Desert in California and studied under Callaway's co-founder, Tony Manzoni. He has a handicap index of 6.2 and spends the winters near Oaxaca, Mexico, where he plays twice a month at the Club de Golf Vista Hermosa. He's written over 100 articles at GolfSpan since 2021. You can connect with Clint at LinkedIn, FB, his website, or Clintcpga@gmail.com.
