A clutch putt saved Scottie Scheffler's incredible 68-tournament made-cut streak. He battled back from a rough start to play the weekend.
A second round score of three under 68 has Scottie Scheffler playing the weekend at the Genesis Invitational, something that looked very unlikely after 27 holes of play.
On hole 18 of the famous Riviera Country Club, Scheffler needed to make a seven-foot putt for par to remain on the cutline.
Of course, the 20-time PGA Tour winner and four-time major champion kept his composure, rolled in the putt and secured a Saturday tee time.
"I tried to make a mess of a pretty basic chip there on 18. I caught it a little thin and just dug in," Scheffler said on Friday. "It was nice to be able to hole a putt and get another two cracks at the course."
The made cut extends his streak to 68, 46 more than the second-longest active streak held by Harris English.
The last time Scheffler missed a cut was at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August of 2022.
Since that tournament, the former Longhorn has found himself in contention more often than he's been on cut watch.
However, for the second time in three weeks, Scheffler has needed a good Friday score to get on the right side of the cutline. His combined score in his last three opening rounds at TPC Scottsdale, Pebble Beach and Riviera is +5.
And although Scheffler was able to rebound at Scottsdale and Pebble Beach(recording top-five finishes at both events), we've grown so accustomed to his dominance from start to finish, so seeing him faltering out of the gates is a bit jarring.
But if there's one thing we've learned about Scheffler over the past few weeks, it's that he'll grind out rounds whether he's battling at the top of the leaderboard or just trying to make the weekend.
After eight holes in his second round, the world No. 1 was sitting at four over par, four shots off the eventual cutline of even par. Time was running out, and it was now or never for Scheffler to make his move.
"I pretty much knew I had to get to at least even par with the way the conditions were," he said.
And that's precisely what he did.
Scheffler birdied his next three holes and picked up one final birdie on the par-five 17th to reach that magic number.
It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but make no mistake, making cuts matters.
A win may be a little far-fetched(you never know with this guy, though), but two good rounds could secure Scheffler his 18th straight top-10 finish.
The former Longhorn will start his third round at 9:45 Central Time on ESPN+.