Today, Saturday, the wind has blown quite intensely over the Plantation course at Kapalua (Maui, Hawaii), a circumstance that among other things significantly increases the difficulty on those gigantic and devilishly moved greens. However, as usual, there were those who managed to continue signing excellent results, starting with the 64 of Harris English, nine less on the day, who in this way has come from the depths to give himself tomorrow an option to win this tournament for the second time. Except for a good option that he let escape on hole 9, from just over two and a half meters, and another short par putt that he missed on the 3, the truth is that English has plugged everything that is pluggable and a little more, from long, medium and short distance, to end up scoring up to seven birdies and two eagles on his card…
Others have not done so well on the greens. For example, Scottie Scheffler (-18). It’s not a novelty, on the other hand. The world’s Number One continues to work with Phil Kenyon, putting guru, but his problems with the putter in his hands are not going to be fixed overnight. On Friday his statistics were not bad at all, but today he has returned to his old ways, perhaps somewhat disoriented by the action of the wind. Scheffler has also made good putts, it must be said (holes 9 and 10, for example), but the final balance of his round in this area has been poor, to the point of seeing him finish the round almost exasperated.
It is true that his tee to green game has not been as excellent as on other occasions. And that he has not been especially fine around the greens in the short par 4s and in the par 5s, where the harvest of birdies is more abundant. But it is also true that today he has again caught 16 greens and that right now, after three rounds, he is the best in the tournament in the greens in regulation statistic, with more than ninety percent (49/54)…
In short: today was that day when the putter could have absolutely transformed the result of his round without asking for pears to the elm: on hole 7 he missed a very short par putt, which did not reach a meter in distance; on the 8 another one, also for par, from just under two meters; on the 11 another from a similar distance, 1.80 meters, for birdie; on the 18 a last birdie from a meter and a half… Not to mention another good handful of occasions that were left in limbo from distances that did not reach four meters.
As can be seen, once again, Scheffler’s irregularity and lack of success on the greens has given a respite to the rest of the contenders, who this week, in Hawaii, are many. The Texan is now ranked 36th in the SG:Putting statistic (36th out of 59 competitors, remember) and this makes it very difficult to close victories. The incredible thing, actually, is that he still has serious options, as he will go out in the final round only three strokes off the lead.
