The Gotterup Streak and the Scheffler Question: What Thursday at Pebble Told Us
Chris Gotterup’s nine consecutive birdies across two rounds—capped by that three-birdie finish in Phoenix and continuing seamlessly into an 8-under 64 at Pebble Beach—is genuinely impressive. In my 35 years covering this tour, I’ve learned to recognize when a player has found something real, and Gotterup’s momentum right now has that unmistakable feel. Two wins already in 2026, and he’s playing with the kind of unconscious rhythm that makes even difficult transitions look easy.
But what really grabbed my attention Thursday wasn’t just the raw brilliance at the top of the leaderboard. It was what happened further down—or rather, what didn’t happen.
When the Best Player in the World Looks Ordinary
Scottie Scheffler shot even par. Let that settle for a moment. The guy who has dominated professional golf like few before him, playing on one of the most generous setups you’ll see all year, couldn’t crack the top 30. He hit only two approach shots inside 10 feet and didn’t make a putt longer than 8 feet.
“I guess the challenge is making a bunch of birdies. That was a challenge for me today.”
There’s something almost comical about that quote—Scheffler essentially saying that birdies, which come to him like second nature most weeks, were difficult on Thursday. And yet, there’s also something worth monitoring here. This marks the first time since May 2021 that Scheffler has shot even or worse in the opening round of consecutive tour starts. That’s a meaningful streak-ender.
In my experience caddying for Tom Lehman back in the ’90s, I learned that slumps rarely announce themselves. They creep in quietly. One bad round becomes “just one of those days,” and then another follows, and suddenly you’re searching for something that felt automatic a week ago. The mud on Scheffler’s ball on the second hole is an excuse, sure, but it’s not the excuse. The real issue was that he wasn’t sharp with his irons and couldn’t manufacture anything on the greens.
What strikes me is whether this is fatigue or rust. Scheffler opened his year at Phoenix, so it’s not like he’s been idle. But something about his rhythm feels off.
The Pebble Advantage Is Real (But Temporary)
Ryo Hisatsune’s 62 is a gorgeous score, and his 9-under total gives him the lead. But I want to gently push back on the idea that this tells us everything about his game going forward. Hisatsune played Pebble Beach, where the conditions were so benign that multiple players torched the early holes. Six birdies in the first six holes wasn’t genius—it was opportunity meeting execution.
“Pebble Beach can be a pushover with no wind, particularly the opening seven holes.”
This is the unsexy truth about the AT&T Pro-Am: the course rotation matters enormously on days like Thursday. Keegan Bradley, playing the tougher Spyglass Hill, shot a 63 that I’d argue was more impressive in context. He had the eagle-birdie combo, sure, but he kept a clean card on a course that was genuinely fighting back.
“It’s about as nice of a day as I’ve ever seen out here. The greens are soft but that gets them a little bumpy, too. So some of the putts are a little dicey, but definitely scoring is good.”
Bradley’s observation is the real story. Yes, scores will be low this week. But we’ll only know something meaningful about these players once the rotation brings everyone through each course and the inevitable wind returns. That’s when you separate the hot streaks from the genuine form.
What Gotterup Actually Proved
Here’s what I found genuinely noteworthy: Gotterup went from winning in Phoenix’s desert conditions—on carpet greens, with that different set of demands—to arriving in coastal California and immediately finding his rhythm on poa annua without missing a beat. That’s not luck. That’s a player who understands his swing well enough to adapt the inputs based on the conditions.
The statistical accomplishment is solid. He’s the first player in 25 years to open a tour event with six straight birdies after winning his previous start. It’s the kind of thing that gets overshadowed by Hisatsune’s lead, but it shouldn’t be.
What concerns me slightly about the narrative developing around Gotterup is that two wins and some hot golf can create expectations that are hard to sustain. I’ve seen this before. A young player gets two, three wins in a stretch, the media anoints him as “the next one,” and then… life normalizes. The tour is patient. It will humble anyone, regardless of form.
The Bigger Picture
If Scheffler is genuinely struggling with his approach play and touch, that opens possibilities for the field over the next month that we haven’t seen in some time. If Gotterup can maintain this level, we might have ourselves a genuinely interesting PGA Tour season.
But it’s one round in California. The real test starts Friday.
