Scott Fowler: 'It's kind of stupid:' World's top golfers sling some mud at PGA Championship

Scott Fowler, The Charlotte Observer on May 15, 2025

Published in Golf

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — OK, I’ve got one for you. The three best golfers in the world all walk into the tee box at the 16th hole at Quail Hollow ... and walk off the green a few minutes later with matching double bogeys and frustrated glares.

Don’t think that’s funny? Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele didn’t either, as Thursday’s “supergroup” drew a huge gallery for the first round of the PGA Championship in Charlotte but posted decidedly pedestrian scores. Their combined “triple double” at 16 was the lowlight — and also the source of some muddy controversy.

As Scheffler wryly said afterward: “I kept the honor with making a double (bogey) on a hole, and I think that will probably be the first and last time I do that in my career unless we get some crazy weather conditions.”

Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player, would rebound to shoot a 2-under-par 69 on the day (the leader, Jhonattan Vegas, shot 64) and is in a tie for 20th after one round. World No. 3 Schauffele had a 1-over 72 and is tied for 60th. And worst of the trio was the world’s No. 2 player McIlroy — who has won four times at Quail Hollow and just came off winning the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. McIlroy brought up the rear of the supergroup with a 3-over 74 in which he hit only four of 14 fairways. McIlroy, in fact, is going to need to do some good work just to make the cut and survive to the weekend when the blockbuster trio tees off together again at 1:47 p.m Friday. After one round, he was tied for 98th.

While McIlroy hacked the ball around wildly on hole No. 16 but didn’t hit it in the water, Scheffler and Schauffele both did — from the middle of the fairway. It’s the sort of inexplicable shot you see from a duffer like me who struggles to break 100.

Both men blamed these wayward watery excursions on having to hit a “mud ball,” because their golf balls had picked up some mud on their rolls down the fairway and had ended up at exactly the wrong place. (It rained off and on during all of the practice days at Quail Hollow earlier in the week).

Note: The PGA of America had decided Wednesday not to play with “preferred” lies, which would have allowed players to lift, clean and place their balls. This was not a popular decision among the players, although it is true that preferred lies are hardly ever played at major championships.

Said Scheffler: “It’s one of those deals where it’s frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it’s going to go. I understand it’s part of the game, but there’s nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes.”

Added Schauffele: “(I) had a ridiculous mud ball there on 16 with Scottie. We were in the middle of the fairway, and I don’t know, we had to aim right of the grandstands probably. I’m not sure. I aimed right of the bunker, and it whipped in the water, and Scottie whipped it in the water as well. … It’s just unfortunate to be hitting good shots and to pay them off that way. It’s kind of stupid. … I’m sure a lot of guys aren’t super happy with sort of the conditions there.”

As for McIlroy, he wasn’t made available to reporters after his 74. But that number was a fairly shocking score given he has had more success at Quail Hollow than any golfer, including winning the PGA Tour event in 2024.

That awful 16th hole was only the seventh hole the supergroup played Thursday, since the supergroup started on the 10th tee. There was still a lot of golf to go, and Scheffler was the one who recovered the best.

“I could have let that bother me today when you got a mud ball and it cost me a couple shots,” Scheffler said. “It cost me possibly two shots on one hole, and if I let that bother me, it could cost me five shots the rest of the round. But today I was proud of how I stayed in there, didn’t let it get to me and was able to play some solid golf on a day in which I was a bit all over the place.”

As for that pesky mud, Schauffele warned that it wasn’t going to get any better. Said the defending PGA Championship winner: “The mud balls are going to get worse. … They’re going to get in that perfect cake zone to where it’s kind of muddy underneath and then picking up mud on the way through.”