All Scottie Scheffler could do was stare.
His second shot, out of a bunker, on the seventh hole Sunday hit the green and, in classic Shinnecock Hills Golf Club style, turned in a U-shape, rolling back into the sand. The holeshot ended up being the latest missed opportunity in a round full of them for Schaeffler – turning what could have been a career-high Grand Slam 30th birthday on Father’s Day into an opportunity that left him with what-ifs.
There was a lot of hype before Sunday about Schaeffler and the race he could run while chasing Wyndham-Clark. He appeared to have resolved the course over the course of the nine on Saturday and could have been closer than the six strokes he fell behind at the start of the round. But Scheffler settled for one goal through Sunday and even into the tournament, finishing tied for fourth place — with JT Poston and Keith Mitchell — and four shots behind Clarke, who won his second U.S. Open in four years.
“I felt like I did enough to have a really good round,” Scheffler said. “I felt like, man, I hit a lot of good shots that were really close to scoring. And I just couldn’t make a hole in those shots.”
The crowd following Scheffler kept pulling all of his shots to hit the fairways and greens as he begged Clarke to end up in the bunkers. There were cheers about his birthday too. The fans wanted it back. They wanted history.
But Scheffler’s struggles began on the first hole — when his second shot went off the green and missed his par-saving putt — and continued on the seventh hole, when he lost the putt he had taken with a birdie from two holes earlier. He got back to 1 under with a birdie on the 10th, but finished his round with a bogey and four straight pars.
So Scheffler’s quest for history becomes a backstory to Sam Burns’ attempt at historical return. It wasn’t him being threatening, really, as Clark stumbled. It wasn’t as close as the US Open in 2022, when he finished tied for second, one shot behind Matt Fitzpatrick, but it was winnable — especially when Clarke started to unravel.
Instead, Scheffler was left wondering about his first round — an area in which he has struggled recently — and his 72nd from Thursday, as his attempt to achieve that career milestone has been postponed for at least another year.
“At the end of the day, I was trying to move up the leaderboard,” Scheffler said. “I have a belief that if Windham hit the equalizer today, I thought I could catch them. It’s just a matter of making the shots.
“…I was close [Sunday]But it’s not where it should be.”