Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele Just Went Off On Mudballs at the PGA Championship

Charlotte, North Carolina has received four inches of rain since Friday. Monday was a complete wash-out at Quail Hollow, and Tuesday saw a suspension of two hours.

It’s soggy out there.

Despite that, the PGA of America decided that the first round of the PGA Championship would be played down, meaning players couldn’t lift, clean, and place their golf balls in the fairway.

That was the wrong decision according to Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele.

Scheffler didn’t do anything spectacular during the opening round, but got it in at 2-under 69. Schauffele stripped it off the tee but couldn’t take advantage, and eventually signed for a 1-over 72.

Both players made wild double bogeys on the par-4 16th after finding the fairway. Just by watching on TV, you could tell they both fell victim to mudballs. Both their balls started right and violently turned over, flying over the green into the water.

“All of us,” Schauffele said when asked if he had any mud balls during round one. “I'm not the only guy. I'm just in front of the camera. I wouldn't want to go in the locker room because I'm sure a lot of guys aren't super happy with sort of the conditions there. I feel like the grass is so good, there is no real advantage to cleaning your ball in the fairway. The course is completely tipped out. It sucks that you're kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.”

He later added: “The mud balls are going to get worse. That wasn't your question, but they're going to get worse as the place dries up. 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. I mean, you just keep—I don't know, maybe it hit it a little bit lower off the tee, but then unfortunately the problem with hitting it low off the tee is the ball doesn't carry or roll anywhere, so then you sacrifice distance. It's a bit of a crapshoot.”

The World No. 1 couldn’t agree more.

“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,” Scheffler said. “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.

“When you think about the purest test of golf, I don't personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for.”

We’ll see what the plan is going forward, but it’s hard to imagine the decision makers going to lift, clean, and place if Quail doesn’t get any more rain this week.

But, like they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.