GUIDONIA MONTECELIO, Italy – A tough week for Scottie Scheffler turned truly ugly on Saturday at the Ryder Cup.
The world No. 1 had already struggled to a 0-1-1 record through the first two team sessions when he teed off for his morning foursomes matches alongside Brooks Koepka against Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Åberg. That’s when things went historically wrong.
The American tandem lost the first hole with a double bogey-6, the second with a bogey-5 and the third with another double bogey-6, and things never got any better. Hovland and Åberg, who are undefeated this week, added birdies at Nos. 6, 8, 9 and 10 to make the turn 7 up and closed out the historic victory on the 11th hole for a 9-and-7 rout.
It was the largest margin of victory for an 18-hole match in Ryder Cup history, easily outpacing the previous mark of 7 and 6 that has been recorded three times.
“We’re meeting two strong guys, No. 1 in the world and five-time major champ, so we tried to not give them anything, and we played really, really solid,” Hovland said. “Obviously we didn’t meet a sharp Scottie and Brooks but we played some really nice golf today.”
Scheffler, who didn’t speak with the media after the match and was seen in a cart alongside his wife, his head buried in his hands, has been under intense scrutiny this week following his recent switch to a new putting coach, Phil Kenyon. Despite intense work with Kenyon this week, Scheffler has struggled on Marco Simone’s greens and his normally solid ball-striking has been inconsistent.
Both Scheffler and Koepka, who didn’t play Friday’s foursomes session, were benched for the final team matches as the U.S. attempts to dig itself out of a 9 ½-2 ½ hole.
Scheffler’s performance this week is a contrast to how he played in his first Ryder Cup two years ago at Whistling Straits when he went undefeated (2-0-1) and helped lead the U.S. team to victory.
