CHARLOTTE – It is quaint, cute even, in this age of polarization and greed in professional golf that the top storyline on Day 1 at the PGA Championship was mud on golf balls — but here we are.
Before we allow for a collective harrumph on the idea of millionaires complaining about the accumulation of wet dirt on golf balls — a phenomenon that creates the kind of unpredictability that drives professional golfers to rage — consider how the potent combination of Mother Nature and a strident adherence to the ethos of the game coalesced Thursday at Quail Hollow.
For context, Scottie Scheffler is the game’s preeminent ball-striker who has dedicated his life to perfecting his craft. He’s also one of the most level-headed and understated champions to play the modern game, which is why his comments regarding Thursday’s conditions felt like a pointed response to the PGA of America, which runs the PGA Championship.
“When you think about the purest test of golf, I don’t personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for,” he explained following an opening 2-under 69 that left him four off the lead. “On a golf course as good of conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up [with preferred lies] because most of the lies you get out here are all really good.
“I understand how a golf purist would be, oh, play it as it lies. But I don’t think they understand what it’s like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden, due to a rules decision, that is completely taken away from us by chance.”
Despite that take, which is as hot as you’ll get from Scheffler, he was quick to remain on-brand. “I don’t make the rules,” he said. “I deal with what the rules decisions are.”
Scheffler, like many players in the field, came by his anger honestly, having endured one of the most egregious mud-ball incidents in recent memory at the par-4 16th hole.
Following a perfect 322-yard drive into the middle of fairway, Scheffler’s approach shot from 212 yards snapped wildly left off his clubface and into the water. He made a double-bogey 6 on the hole.
From 200 yards, Scheffler is ninth on the PGA Tour this season in approach distance (47-foot average). His wayward approach on No. 16 was more than 100 feet left of his intended line.
The incident would have likely been overlooked, if it had been isolated. Following a similarly impressive drive at No. 16 (323 yards), Xander Schauffele suffered the same muddy result and watery fate with his approach for his own double bogey.
“Had a ridiculous mud ball there on 16 with Scottie. We were in the middle of the fairway, and I don’t know, we had to aim right of the grandstands probably. I’m not sure,” said Schauffele, who was outside the top 60 following a 1-over opening card. “I aimed right of the bunker and it whipped in the water and Scottie whipped it in the water, as well.
The super-grouping of the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 players in the world may have a difficult time finishing that way on the final leaderboard at the PGA Championship.
“It is what it is, and a lot of guys are dealing with it, but it’s just unfortunate to be hitting good shots and to pay them off that way. It’s kind of stupid.”
“Ridiculous” and “stupid” are normally not part of Schauffele’s lexicon. Like Scheffler, he’s usually content to let his prolific game do the speaking and leaves the complaining to others.
Players knew mud was going to be an issue after days of rain in the buildup to the PGA Championship, followed by bright, steamy conditions for the opening round. It was a textbook recipe for mud balls. The PGA of America also knew mud balls could become problem, releasing a curiously preemptive statement late Wednesday that seemed directed at players more than the media or fans.
“We do not plan to play preferred lies. The playing surfaces are outstanding and are drying by the hour. We are mowing the fairways this evening,” the statement read.
It’s also telling that most players weren’t surprised that the PGA opted not to allow for preferred lies, which would allow players to mark and clean their golf balls in “closely mown areas” like the fairway. Kerry Haigh, the longtime setup man for the association’s championships, has a clear body of work on this having last allowed for preferred lies during the final day at the 2016 PGA Championship.
Asked this week to explain the threshold for when he would allow for preferred lies, Haigh said, “when you could not have played without doing it.”
At ’16 in Baltusrol, Haigh and company needed to complete the third and fourth rounds on Sunday. Completing 36 holes on a soft golf course to avoid a Monday finish appears to be the kind of extreme circumstances that would prompt Haigh to go against centuries of tradition and play preferred lies, not the prospect of a few grumpy Tour types.
Haigh has earned the benefit of the doubt through decades of widely respected work and his decision to cling to the sanctity of the game Thursday at Quail Hollow won’t change that, but there is an element of misplaced priorities in the choice. Haigh and anyone else who sets up golf courses to host major championships attend to a single tenet — identify the best player. Allowing mud and fate to have such an outsized voice in that process seems counterintuitive.
“I’m not the only guy. I’m just in front of the camera. I wouldn’t want to go in the locker room because I’m sure a lot of guys aren’t super happy with sort of the conditions there,” said Schauffele, who added that he felt “lucky” only to have a few mud balls and that he expects it to get worse on Friday. “I feel like the grass is so good, there is no real advantage to cleaning your ball in the fairway. The course is completely tipped out. It sucks that you’re kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.”
“I was a little surprised we played it down. We had a bunch of mud balls out there,” said Stephan Jaeger, who shot 67.
“We all get pretty decent at judging some of the mud stuff, but you’re still hitting 215- to 220-yard 5-irons that you’re trying to figure out the mud, right? It’s hard enough as it is.”
There has always been an element of luck in golf, but Thursday’s example of the world Nos. 1 and 3 – Scheffler and Schauffele, respectively – enduring the wild capriciousness of mud balls at the same high-profile moment is beyond maddening. Millionaires complaining about mud may also seem maddening, antiquated even, but then so are the rules that leave the game’s very best so enraged.
