Scheffler's Putter Was Broken. Turns Out It Wasn't.
One week he couldn't find the hole. The next he's carding 65 and torching the field on the greens. Here's what actually happened.
For one week at Royal Birkdale, Scottie Scheffler looked almost human on the greens. Then he flew home to Minnesota and reminded everyone why that was never going to last. The world number one has spent the last two years quietly rewriting his reputation as a putter, turning the one glaring hole in his game into an actual weapon. So when he lost strokes on the greens at The Open Championship, only the second time he's done that in twelve months, it raised eyebrows. Something wasn't right. Here's the thing though: whatever wasn't right, it sorted itself out fast.
What happened at the 3M Open?
Scheffler opened his 3M Open campaign with a 6-under 65 on Thursday at TPC Twin Cities, gaining more than three shots on the field on the greens alone, second best of anyone in the field. Six birdies. Not a single bogey. He rolled in 134 feet worth of putts across the round and looked, by the back nine, like a man who'd never had a wobble in his life.
| Detail | Fact |
|---|---|
| Round | 6-under 65 in round one of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities |
| Putting | Gained 3+ strokes on the field, second-best in the field |
| Scorecard | Six birdies, zero bogeys, 134 feet of putts made |
| Context | First-ever appearance at the 3M Open |
| The Open finish | T4 at Royal Birkdale, lost strokes putting for just the second time in 12 months |
| Season stats | No. 1 in scoring average, No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Total, No. 1 in FedExCup |
| Wins this season | Just one, The American Express in January |
Why the Birkdale wobble mattered
Links golf does strange things to a putter. Scheffler said as much himself after his final round at The Open. "Part of playing links golf is the ball's not going to roll true every single time. Felt like I was just on the wrong end of that last week," he explained. It wasn't panic talk. It was a man diagnosing a problem and filing it away for later.
Turns out later was Thursday.
How Scheffler flipped the switch so quickly
The front nine at TPC Twin Cities (which plays as the back nine of the course, for anyone confused by the numbering) gave an early hint something had clicked. Scheffler drained birdie putts of 14 and 16 feet, then rescued par from 17 feet to turn in 2-under. Tidy, not spectacular.
But it gets messier for whoever's trying to catch him: on the back nine, Scheffler pinned his ears back. Four more birdies followed, including putts of 28, 14, and 10 feet. That's not a good putting day. That's a putting clinic.
"Golf's funny," Scheffler said afterward. "Some days you're hitting your lines and the line seems to be tracking toward the hole and other days it feels like you're doing the same thing and it kind of goes around the hole, but today was a day in which I was able to hole some nice putts and that's why I was able to make some birdies out there."
Ask him what actually changed and the answer is almost annoyingly simple. "Got here and made sure I was lined up where I thought it was and made sure I was hitting it on that line and that was about it," he said. No secret drill. No swing overhaul. Just a bloke re-checking his aim.
Context: how far Scheffler's putting has actually come
This is where the story gets genuinely interesting, and it's easy to miss if you only watched one round. Scheffler currently ranks 14th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting this season. Go back to 2025 and he was 22nd. Before that, 77th in 2024. Before that? 162nd across 2022-23.
That's not a gradual climb. That's a total rebuild of the weakest part of an otherwise ridiculous game, completed in roughly three years. The Birkdale dip wasn't a crisis. It was a rounding error against that trajectory.
What this means for Scheffler's season
Here's where it gets a bit strange. Despite arguably his best putting season on record, Scheffler's win count hasn't followed. His approach play has dipped just slightly, enough to blunt what should have been a landslide of trophies. He still sits first in scoring average, first in Strokes Gained: Total, first in the FedExCup. But by his own brutal internal scoreboard, wins are the only currency that counts, and he's banked just one all year, back at The American Express in January.
That's the open loop worth watching. A player this dominant statistically, with only a single win to show for it, heading into a tournament he's playing for the very first time.
What does this mean for the 3M Open?
For a tournament still establishing itself on a calendar packed with events that have decades of history behind them, landing Scheffler as a debutant is about as good as it gets. He's arguably been the biggest drawcard the 3M Open has had since it joined the TOUR, and round one gave the home galleries exactly the show they were hoping for.
Fifty-four holes remain. If Thursday's putting stroke sticks around, so does the target on his back.