Riviera Week: Why Scottie’s Thursday Struggles Actually Signal Something Bigger for the Modern Tour

I’ve been covering this tour long enough to know that patterns matter more than individual tournaments. So when I watched Scottie Scheffler shoot a first-round 69 at TPC Scottsdale, then follow it with back-to-back 64s and 63s to nearly win both Phoenix and Pebble Beach, something clicked for me—and it’s worth examining before we head to Riviera this week.

We’re living in what you might call the “Third-Rate Thursday” era of Scottie golf, and frankly, it’s the most compelling narrative the tour has given us in months. As the source notes:

“For two weeks in a row now, at TPC Scottsdale and Pebble Beach, we’ve seen Scottie stink up the joint on Thursday, then play like the greatest golfer who has ever lived the rest of the weekend to almost win.”

Now, here’s where my decades of experience matter: this is not as anomalous as everyone wants to believe it is. In the late 2000s, I watched Rory McIlroy develop a similar pattern—what observers called his “Freaky Fridays” stretch—where chronic second-day letdowns cost him major titles. The difference then was that Rory’s problem was mechanical and mental, a correctable flaw in his preparation. With Scottie, I suspect we’re seeing something different: the occasional cost of absolute dominance.

When you’re as good as Scottie has been, the mental side of Thursday becomes almost irrelevant. He knows—we all know—that he can shoot 64 on Friday and still win the tournament. So perhaps what we’re witnessing isn’t a weakness in his game but rather evidence of just how superior his weekend golf has become. The man shot a 63 at Pebble Beach mid-tournament and nearly won. That’s not a concern; that’s a horror show for everyone else in the field.

The Personality Paradox Nobody’s Talking About

One of the sharper observations in this week’s preview concerns Scottie’s public persona. The piece correctly identifies something I’ve been quietly arguing for years: Scottie Scheffler is far more interesting as a human being than people give him credit for.

“Just look at Scheffler’s now-famous press conference from Portrush last summer, and try to find anything Tiger ever said that is remotely as introspective or thoughtful.”

Having covered Tiger for decades, I’ll say this plainly: the cultural dominance argument is bulletproof. Tiger changed golf globally in ways Scottie may never match. But the personality argument? That’s actually true. Tiger’s off-course narrative was built entirely on his vices and his mythology. Scottie’s is built on actual depth—his Christianity, his intellectual curiosity, his willingness to be genuinely vulnerable in press settings. It’s less flashy, which is why casual fans miss it. But for anyone who’s spent serious time around the tour, it’s obvious.

This matters because it affects how we should view Scottie’s career trajectory. He’s not building a Tiger-like cultural juggernaut, but he’s building something potentially more durable: genuine respect and interest beyond the golf course itself.

The Anthony Kim Reckoning and Where We Draw Lines

I want to flag something that the preview handles with admirable nuance—the whole Anthony Kim situation. Here’s a guy who just won a golf tournament after a genuine comeback, which is legitimately impressive on multiple levels. But as the source points out:

“I consider this pretty impressive on an athletic and mental health level…However, I also reserve the right to not really care for Anthony Kim as a person, even though he won a golf tournament.”

In 35 years, I’ve learned that golf media often functions with a kind of convenient amnesia. We want our stories clean and uncomplicated. But they rarely are. A man can be a good competitor and a questionable public figure simultaneously. Those things can coexist. The preview’s willingness to acknowledge both his athletic resilience AND his social media behavior is exactly the kind of balanced coverage the tour actually needs more of.

Riviera’s Peculiar Charm in the Modern Era

Here’s where I’ll add some insider perspective: Riviera is one of the last courses on tour that hasn’t been fundamentally altered by modern equipment, and that’s almost miraculous. That 315-yard par-4 tenth hole should theoretically be extinct by now. The fact that it’s still producing a stroke average under four is either brilliant architecture or sorcery—probably both.

I’ve walked Riviera dozens of times across my career. The eucalyptus trees really do smell like something you’d bottle and sell to hungover tourists. It’s a sensory experience that most televised golf can’t capture, and that loss is real. For my money, it remains one of the five most beautiful courses on the American tour schedule.

The Picks and the Pattern

The preview’s forecast—Scottie to win at a famous course he’s been “just ordinary” at previously—feels right to me. Great players eventually collect wins at great courses. It’s a statistical inevitability combined with mental momentum. The fact that his best finish at Riviera is T-7 in six tries actually suggests it’s overdue.

As for the European contingent, the dark horse pick of Adam Scott interests me. Not because his form is stellar—it’s not—but because Scott is exactly the kind of older player who can find magic at places he knows intimately. He’s got five top-five finishes at Riviera. That’s the kind of history that occasionally produces surprises.

Riviera Week always reminds me why I’ve stayed in this business. It’s still a tour where excellence matters, where history has weight, and where the best players usually win. That’s rarer in sports than you’d think.