{"id":483088,"date":"2026-02-22T03:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/483088\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T03:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:03:08","slug":"scottie-scheffler-picks-up-steam-at-riviera-sees-slow-starts-as-small-sample-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/483088\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler picks up steam at Riviera, sees slow starts as ‘small sample size’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scottie Scheffler woke up 12 strokes off the Genesis Invitational <\/a>lead on Saturday. <\/p>\n

The world No. 1 might not have improved that deficit 18 holes later but he walked off Riviera Country Club satisfied with a 5-under 66 for his third round.<\/p>\n

Most importantly though, Scheffler shook off a slow start and looked more like the 20-time PGA Tour winner \u2014 the player who has made every cut dating back to August 2022 \u2014 with three straight birdies on the back nine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days it\u2019s going to go well and other days it\u2019s not going to go well,\u201d Scheffler told reporters in his post-round interview. \u201cYou look at three tournaments in a row, I haven\u2019t started off that good. When you look at it like from a macro view, it\u2019s such a small sample size. I played now 11 rounds the last few weeks and I had eight pretty solid ones and three I\u2019d like to have back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scheffler has been able to cut his number of bogeys in half with each passing round at the Genesis (down to one in Round 3), showing for the third consecutive Saturday that he can still build momentum and find comfort on a course. <\/p>\n

He still has a self-proclaimed \u201cweird relationship<\/a>\u201d with Riviera despite showing up Saturday with his best round of the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times it still felt weird,\u201d Scheffler said of his third-round success. \u201cThe golf course is gettable in the morning, the greens are fresher. So I was able to hole a few putts, which is key. I don\u2019t necessarily know what else to say. … I wanted to shoot a little bit lower, but overall 5 under is pretty solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Improvement is good but Scheffler won\u2019t be achieving the ultimate goal in winning at Riviera Country Club \u2014 doing what even Tiger Woods could not during his illustrious career.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scheffler, like Tiger Woods \u2014 and, to this point, Rory McIlroy \u2014 has not won a PGA Tour event at Riviera Country Club.<\/p>\n

He still has the top-10 streak to keep intact on Sunday \u2014 that\u2019s up to 18 straight finishes tied for 10th or better after his master-class work at Pebble Beach last Sunday that saw him card three eagles for the first time in a single round.<\/a><\/p>\n

While he is now 14 back of runaway leader Jacob Bridgeman, Scheffler, at 5 under, is thee shots back of the current top 10.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The streak didn\u2019t seem to matter to him a week ago<\/a> after 54 holes. Flash forward a week, and the question of extending it to 19 was never asked. <\/p>\n

Perhaps too much golf remains to be played on the final leg of the Tour\u2019s West Coast swing. Or, maybe everyone in the golf world knows one thing for certain \u2014 slow start or not, Scheffler won\u2019t go quietly into the California night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler woke up 12 strokes off the Genesis Invitational lead on Saturday. The world No. 1 might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-483088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}