British Open 2024: Putting costs Scottie Scheffler a chance for a perfect finish to a brilliant year

TROON, Scotland — When Scottie Scheffler sent his putt from off the green six feet past the hole on the par-4 ninth on Sunday in the British Open, it felt like a massive moment. He'd been up and down all day, and indeed all week, but a birdie at the Postage Stamp a moment earlier had him squarely back in the mix at four under, two shots off the lead. Now, the par putt he faced on 9 seemed critical; miss, and he'd fall back yet again and lose some desperately needed momentum; make it, and he'd have a head of steam going into the back nine.

We saw what happened next. Not only did Scheffler miss, but he managed to miss the two-foot comebacker as well. It was a dreaded four-putt, and his chance to win the Open looked dead in the water. As it turned out, they were. Scheffler never reached that four-under number again, and Xander Schauffele lapped both him and most of the rest of the field to capture his second major of the year.

It may seem odd to say that a handful of putts cost Scheffler the Open when he eventually lost by eight, but that four-putt was only the most egregious of the mistakes on the greens through four days at Troon. The knock on Scheffler has always been that despite his ridiculous ball-striking skill—the guy leads every category you can think of on the PGA Tour—putting has been a glaring weakness. This year, he's elevated putting from poor to average by strokes-gained metrics, and that's been plenty to take him from "extremely good … but he went a year without winning" to "six-time winner and Masters/Players champ in 2024." He's that good away from the green that merely sitting in the middle of the pack puts him over the top at many events.

But the Open was the latest reminder that he can still cost himself big, legacy-defining opportunities on the green. When all was said and done, he finished 131st of 157 golfers at Troon in SG/putting. Look how that compared to the rankings of everyone else who finished under par:

Schauffele (19); Justin Rose (11); Billy Horschel (26); Thriston Lawrence (6); Russell Henley (21); Shane Lowry (13); Jon Rahm (44); Sungjae Im (5).

It's an astounding difference, and a reminder that you just can't win being that bad on the greens. In fact, at a course like Troon, you shouldn't be even near even par. Why was Scheffler at one under? Because by the R&A's metrics, he gained 11 strokes on his approach shots, by far the best in the field. Data Golf, with its own strong metrics, had him second in approach and third in tee to green. In other words, he was as elite as ever in his ball-striking, but stunk it up with the putter in his hand.

The story was similar at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, where Scheffler had the fourth-best SG/approach, the 10th best tee-to-green numbers, and the 19th-worst putting numbers. At the PGA, he was ninth in approach, sixth in tee to green, and into the negatives in putting.

In other words, though Scheffler has been just fine at putting this year—almost perfectly average, in fact—he fell back into the doldrums in two of the majors and slipped a little at the PGA too. Even at the Masters, it was the worst part of his game, but obviously there he did well enough to win.

Even without the numbers at Troon, you could see it anecdotally all week—he just couldn't string together any hot streaks on the green, and while his ball striking kept him hovering near the lead, he could never go over the top. Sunday, with its tightly packed leaderboard, was always going to require a great putting performance, and yet again Scheffler vacillated between running in place and making huge mistakes, as we saw on no. 9.

It's hard to find fault with Scheffler, because the fact remains that he's won six tournaments, a major, the Players, and is the No. 1 player in the world. Still, results like Troon hammer home the point that while he's brought his averages up overall, he still hasn't quite escaped his putting demons at the world's toughest courses. It's hard to know for sure if he could have been up with Schauffele and given himself a chance to win if he kept it together for four days, but we can say this with certainty: He never gave himself a chance.