The world’s No. 1 golfer from Dallas came out firing on Thursday.
Scheffler finished the first round hovering near the top of the leaderboard, shooting a bogey-free 6-under 71. He finished his round as other Dallas-area players like Tom Kim, Tom Hoge and Pierceson Coody were just hitting the course — Jordan Spieth is not taking part in this week’s event.
A break after the last major of the season would have made sense for Scheffler, but he was focused on keeping his game sharp ahead of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Though this will be his fifth tournament in six weeks, including two in Britain, Scheffler didn’t want to enter the playoffs after three weeks off.
“One of the things that I’ve always kind of prided myself on is the consistency. That’s something that shows that I’m playing some pretty good golf,” Scheffler said before the tournament began.
“It just hasn’t been quite good enough to win some tournaments. I still feel like my game’s in a good spot and I’ve played some nice golf. I haven’t played any great golf yet, but I’ve played some nice golf over the course of the season. I think if you took a blind look at some of my results, I think a lot of people would say that’s a really good season.”
There are several players in contention for the playoffs who could use a strong showing this week to climb above the cut. Jason Day, Brian Harman, Hoge and 2022 3M Open champion Tony Finau are currently outside the top 70.
Scheffler, who had his third top-four finish in four majors this year at the British Open, has not won a tournament since The American Express in California in January.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.