Robert TheodorsonScottie Scheffler found himself in unfamiliar territory Thursday evening: dead last, 50th out of 50th in the shortened field of The BMW Championship.
Scheffler, who began his title defense last evening at Bellerive Country Club, seemingly hit a wall early on in what should have been a routine outing.
Dropping to 4-over par twice over the course of the day, Scheffler sank to the bottom of the standings for a good portion of opening round Thursday. It was an uncharacteristic performance from the undisputed world number one, and came on a day where more than half the field finished the round under par.
Luckily, Scheffler was able to turn on some late magic on the back nine with two birdies. Despite the 2-over-par 72, Scheffler is only eight shots off the lead with three days to go.
For any other golfer this may be considered insurmountable, but we’ve all learned never to count Scheffler out of a tournament.
Only Sepp Straka, Bud Cauley, and Nicolai Hojaard finished worse than Scottie, each at 3-over par.
While Scheffler faltered, Rory McIlroy flourished.
Suffering a somewhat humiliating 66/69 finish at last week’s St. Jude Championship, there were several questions regarding the six-time major winner’s commitment to the FedEx Cup playoffs after locking up an early straight shot to the Tour Championship based on past points earned.
McIlroy silenced those critics by firing a tournament-leading 64 on Thursday, joining Gary Woodland, Wyndham Clark, JJ Spaun, and Chris Gotterup atop the leaderboard with a first-round score of 6-under par.
In what looked to be a normal, but not spectacular day for McIlroy, something clicked for Rory on the back nine, scoring four times across the last six holes, including back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 to finish out the round.
Elsewhere, Justin Thomas made his case for inclusion into the Tour Championship after shooting a 3-under par 67, good for a T12 finish.
For Thomas, this BMW Championship needed to consist of miracle rounds like Thursday, as JT needs close to an outright win to make it to the third and final round of the playoffs after entering 44/50 in the FedEx Cup standings.Â
Patrick Cantlay, who is one spot ahead of JT in the standings, also finished T12 and will look for his first pro win in several years, and in no less a tournament that he has won before.
