Scottie Scheffler buried 134 feet of putts in a bogey-free 65, instantly erasing last week’s putting concerns and threatening the 3M Open field.
Scottie Scheffler didn’t need much time to prove Royal Birkdale was an exception, not a warning sign.
Less than a week after an unusually cold putting performance helped keep him from winning The Open Championship, Scheffler returned to the United States and immediately turned the flat stick into a weapon.
The world’s most relentless ball-striker opened the 3M Open with a bogey-free 6-under 65, gaining more than three strokes on the greens at TPC Twin Cities.
Scheffler has always been terrifying when his putter merely cooperates. On Thursday, it did considerably more than that. He rolled in 134 feet of putts, made six birdies and ranked second in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting.
A player who once survived despite his putting suddenly looked dangerous because of it.
Scheffler’s opening round included birdie conversions from 14 and 16 feet, but the biggest sign that things had changed may have been a 17-foot par save before the turn.
Instead of surrendering momentum, Scheffler escaped, stayed clean and then attacked.
He made four birdies over his final nine holes, highlighted by a 28-footer on the fourth and additional makes from 14 and 10 feet. There were no three-putts, no careless bogeys and no lingering frustration from England.
Just another Scheffler charge.
The contrast from The Open Championship was impossible to ignore. Scheffler finished tied for fourth at Royal Birkdale but lost strokes putting for only the second time in the past year.
On a links course where uneven surfaces and unpredictable rolls can punish even well-struck putts, his normally dependable short game never found a rhythm.
TPC Twin Cities offered smoother conditions, and Scheffler took full advantage.
His improvement with the putter has become one of the defining developments of his career. Scheffler currently ranks 14th on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting, continuing a dramatic climb from 22nd last season, 77th in 2024 and 162nd during the 2022-23 campaign.
That evolution has removed the most obvious weakness from his game.
Scheffler still leads the PGA Tour in scoring average, Strokes Gained: Total and the FedExCup standings. Yet by his own brutal standard, the season has felt incomplete.
His only victory came at The American Express in January, an unusually modest total for a player accustomed to collecting trophies in bunches.
That could change quickly in Minnesota.
This is Scheffler’s first appearance at the 3M Open, and he arrived as the tournament’s unquestioned headline attraction. It took him exactly one round to move from celebrity draw to genuine title threat.
There are still 54 holes remaining, but Thursday delivered a familiar message to the field: when Scottie Scheffler starts making putts, second place becomes a very crowded destination.
