Scottie Scheffler believes PGA Championship chiefs should have allowed preferred lies after days of heavy rain at Quail Hollow. The World No. 1 was one of several stars who were impacted by muddy balls during the first round of the tournament.
Scheffler was paired with Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffeler, who both also struggled. Preferred lies would have allowed players to clean their balls when required, but they were instead told they had to hit every shot as it landed. Scheffler, who ended on two under par, believes having preferred lies would have made it the ‘fairest test’ of the players’ abilities.
He said afterwards: “I think if you’re looking at the purest forms of golf, like if you’re looking to go and play links golf, there’s absolutely no reason on a links golf course you should play the ball up. It doesn’t matter how much rain they get. The course could be flooded under water and the ball is still going to bounce somehow because of the way the turf is.
“In American golf it’s slightly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand capped, there’s going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that’s just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don’t personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway [that] you should get punished for it.
“On a golf course as good conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are really good. So I understand how a golf purist would say, ‘Oh, play it as it is’. 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 hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden, due to a rules decision, it’s completely taken away from you by chance.
“In golf, there’s enough luck through a 72-hole tournament that I don’t think the story should be whether or not the ball is played up or down. I want the purest, fairest test of golf, and maybe the ball today should have been played up.
“I don’t make the rules [and] I deal with what the rules decisions are. I could have let that bother me today, when you get a mud ball and it cost me a couple of shots … but today I was proud of how I stayed in there and didn’t let it get to me.”
Scheffler performed the best of the trio in his group. Schauffeler hit one over par, while Masters champion McIlroy had a horror opening round at three over par.
