NOTEBOOK: Major Champs Scheffler, McIlroy, Morikawa Opine on Oakmont

OAKMONT, Pa — Scottie Scheffler had played in two PGA Tour events as an amateur in 2016 and his third act found him at Oakmont Country Club, trying to contend, something he certainly did after 18 holes.

While the second round caused him to miss the cut, the now-world No. 1 remembered coming to the property thinking it was fun and cool to play in a U.S. Open.

“I played a practice round with Dustin (Johnson) and Brooks (Koepka),” he recalled. “(I) felt like I learned a lot from those guys at the time. It definitely made me excited to get out here for real because it was a pretty fun week. Obviously, I had a pretty good first round, didn’t play as good in the second. That was a tough pill to swallow, missing the cut by one.”

That failure led him to work to get back the next year, which he did and made the cut for good measure.

Scheffler is well aware that much of the talk this week is about long driving and avoiding the rough, but for him it is more about the angles to avoid both that and the many bunkers on the course.

At the Memorial Tournament, especially in crucial moments in the final round, Scheffler pulled out his 7-wood, but this week he is not sure it is really in play because of the rough.

Clearly Scheffler is a feel player, and this has certainly been on display this season, beginning with his runner-up finish in Houston.

This was when he felt like he was starting to do some good things. While ball-striking was still not where it was desired to be, he was making putts.

Once he showed up and won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, he took off. To say Scheffler has been dialed in since may be quite the understatement.

Bringing things back to the present, Scheffler has dialed in his major preparation, and it is quite comparable to where it normally is.

His view of majors is comparable to those in tennis, where each is a different surface. In tennis, you encounter a hard court, then clay, onto grass and concluding with another hard court.

“The U.S. Open compared to the Masters is a completely different type of test,” solved Scheffler. “I think at the Masters you have a lot more shotmaking when you get around the greens because it’s a lot of fairway, there’s pine straw, there’s not really the rough factor.

“Then when you get here, it’s a lot of hacking out of the rough. You still have to be extremely precise but it’s a bit more when you talk about strength and power, I think that becomes more of a factor at these tournaments because when you hit it in the rough you’ve got to muscle it out of there.

“It’s just a different type of test than you see at the Masters. Both of them are fantastic tests. This is probably the hardest golf course that we’ll play, maybe ever, and that’s pretty much all it is. It’s just a different type of test.”

MCILROY SEEKS TO REGAIN MAJOR FORM

The biggest question mark quite possibly of anyone in the U.S. Open field was what Rory McIlroy’s plan was with his driver, and he answered that. Well sort of.

Q. Have you settled on a driver that you want to use this week, first of all?

RORY McILROY: Yeah.

Q. What is it?

RORY McILROY: A TaylorMade.

Q. What model?

RORY McILROY: I mean, come out and watch me hit balls, and you’ll see.

Golf Digest’s Jonathan Wall revealed it was a Qi10, this after using a Qi35, which McIlroy admitted was not the right driver for him.

He was more open with his admission that he hit a lot of drivers with each having its own character when it comes to managing misses.

McIlroy has been in an interesting place since the Masters, having accomplished his long-awaited grand slam, emptying his emotions on the 18th green.

It is any golfer’s dream to see the final putt drop, but it is different for everyone in processing what comes next.

The off-the-course aspect comes to saying no to every request and to be home as much as possible, doing things he enjoys, such as tennis which he picked back up and plays with caddie Harry Diamond.

He is actively trying to have more fun, get back to his hobbies and fill his time with things he desires to do, but that has been a work in progress.

“I think I’ve always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament,” he readily admitted. “I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you’ve just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it, and you want to sort of relish the fact that you’ve achieved a goal. I think chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I’m allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit, but here at Oakmont, I certainly can’t relax this week.”

The test will be tough for McIlroy at a course where last Monday he copped to shooting an 81, but with more confidence behind the driver and a bit more rest, he hopes that is the recipe for another major championship.

MORIKAWA DETAILS BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT

Collin Morikawa walked to the infamous par-3 eighth hole, not having done any scouting trips before coming to Oakmont and was in disbelief at the prospect of having to pull out driver or wood for potentially all four rounds.

He readily admits that he would sign up for four pars at that very moment and move on to the next hole.

At the Memorial Tournament, Morikawa got off to a good start but flinched in the second round and would finish in 20th place.

His biggest area of work is based upon his posture, so he can feel like he uses his hands.

“A lot of the feel comes from our hands and dictating where that shot goes,” he demonstrated. “You look at the best in the world, Scottie Scheffler, doesn’t matter where his feet and everything move, he has control of that golf club. Recently I feel like I’ve been a little too crowded at setup, and this posture is just allowing me to give myself space without forcing my body in bad positions.

“We all want good posture, but it’s how do you get in good posture and feel relaxed, not stiff. It’s the balance of finding those two. It’s not space (created by) just pulling my shoulders back. That’s stiff. It’s finding little ways to get in good posture but just be relaxed so I can use my hands.”

Morikawa has never been to Pittsburgh before but does have some local connection of sort having previously won Johnstown’s famous Sunnehanna Amateur in 2016.

For that event he stayed with a host family and remembers the fun he had with long-drive competitions among other things.

He appreciated it because amateur golf to him is pure golf and provided good memories. Now he hopes to have another relatively fun week, this time lifting one of the biggest trophies in the sport.

Oakmont will certainly provide a test to him, but Morikawa is more than game.

“I think you keep hearing the word tough and rough, a lot of rhyming words, but overall, you have to hit the ball really well,” the Californian explained. “You know you’re going to get penalized even on good shots, and that’s just part of this golf course. We’ll see how it plays out. Greens already today are getting a lot faster compared to yesterday. Depending on the weather, you kind of have to adapt to that as the week goes on.”