For the first time this year, Scottie Scheffler missed the cut in the first round on a challenging afternoon with windy weather and a new vibe at the refurbished Colonial Country Club that appeared to confuse everyone but Charley Hoffman in the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Hoffman led five players, all of whom benefited greatly from playing in the morning, by one stroke with a 5-under 65 total. Shots onto greens that were especially far from being new were especially important since Hoffman had to contend with wind gusting in the 20 mph range.
Scheffler shot a 2-over 72 on Thursday, his first triple bogey of the year, and his second over par round in the last three outings. He had played 41 straight rounds at par or better before then.
Scheffler’s difficulties weren’t unique to only him.
Comparing the 132-player field to the record score at the PGA Championship last week, just 45 players broke par. Max Homa shot 78, his best non-major score since the Workday Memorial four years prior, he also didn’t make a birdie.
A large portion of that was related to Colonial, which underwent a comprehensive renovation following the competition the previous year, which included new irrigation and tee-to-green sod.
As anticipated, no one had played Colonial following the renovations until this week, and the wind made the game more challenging. The greens were hard and bouncy from fresh sod.
Hoffman thought it probably wouldn’t be easy when he noticed that no one had shot lower than 66 in the morning, including Tony Finau and The Open Champion Brian Harman. Though that was the smartest course of action, fairways and greens are not usually his strong points.
Hoffman never came close to missing a stroke, missing only two fairways and three greens.
You have some mid-and low-irons on this course, so you want to play it aggressively, but you can’t play it too aggressively because of the short greens and difficult up-and-down conditions. It was thus, in my opinion, a rather simple 5-under, which is good. It was low stress, but they’re not usually like that.
Finau, S.H. Kim, Davis Riley, and Harman and Martin Laird also played bogey-free in the morning for their 66s.
Among those who started with 68 was Collin Morikawa, who participated in the final groups at both the Masters and the PGA Championship this year.
Since everything seemed so fresh, even if the “essence of the course” remained the same, Harman believed that everyone was on an equally playing field, regardless of prior performance.
“When a landmark like this gets redone, there’s always a worry that something would go wrong, but I’m rather certain that nothing went wrong. The turf isn’t exactly where it should be yet, so the course needs some time to mature. It takes a while for things to stabilize and for those roots to take on structure.”Harman said.
I don’t believe they messed it up, but I’m going to reserve judgment on my thoughts on it for probably a few more years. In my opinion, they performed rather well.
Scheffler started the round with two birdies through four holes, then lost strokes on the par-4 seventh and par-4 ninth when he missed a putt from a fairway bunker and another from the rough.
On the par-3 13th hole, however, his 8-iron shot fell short and right and into the pond, sending his round south. He chipped to eight feet but missed the putt as his wedge from the drop zone spun off the green. He concluded with four pars and a birdie,
Opening with a 69 in his first visit to Colonial since 2018, Adam Scott ; the only player to win on every current PGA TOUR stop in Texas became the leader. In his maiden start as No. 1 in the world, he triumphed in 2013.
On his last hole, Jordan Spieth hammered a wedge to two feet to score a 71.
