Just as most golf fans hoped, the final round of the Genesis Invitational on Sunday at Torrey Pines will feature Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy going head-to-head in the same twosome, beginning at 10:20 a.m.
What probably no one hoped for, or expected: There are five groups playing after them.
That’s how far Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked golfer, and McIlroy, who is No. 3, fell off during Saturday’s third round on a sunny, breezy day at Torrey Pines South.
They are tied for eighth place at 3-under par, five shots behind the leader, Patrick Rodgers.
Scheffler, who started the day one shot behind Davis Thompson, matched his playing partner in Saturday’s final pairing with a 4-over 76 – the worst rounds of the day in the 54-man field.
McIlroy, playing just ahead of Scheffler and Thompson, birdied the last hole to salvage a 2-over 74.
“I’ve looked up to Rory for a while,” said Denny McCarthy, who played Saturday with McIlroy and will be in the final group at 11:15 today with Rodgers. “It’s always fun getting a front-row seat to watch him play golf and hit a golf ball. It’s pretty insane some of the shots he can hit. It’s kind of like getting a front-row seat to watch MJ or LeBron, I would imagine. It’s pretty fun watching him hit a golf ball how he does.”
Hopefully, McCarthy turned away when McIlroy was putting. Even though he made a 20-footer to save par at 12, McIlroy lost 3.90 strokes to the field with his putter — his worst PGA Tour round in that statistic since the 2014 Wells Fargo, according to golf stat guru Justin Ray. McIlroy’s only birdies came with putts from 3 feet on 9 and from 17 inches on 18.
Still, that was one more birdie than Scheffler, who lost 3.152 strokes putting, the third-worst showing in the field. He made a 3 at the par-4 fifth hole to tie Thompson for the lead at 8-under, but his round immediately turned at the par-5 sixth, where he 3-putted from 13 feet for a bogey.
His putt for par was from 32 inches; according to Ray, it broke Scheffler’s streak of 521 putts made from 3 feet and closer. When Scheffler then bogeyed the ninth hole by missing from 9 feet, Ray reported it was the first time he had bogeyed multiple par-5s on the same nine in nearly 2,000 days (2019 Sanderson Farms Championship).
It would only get worse. After four straight pars, Scheffler pulled his drive on the par-4 14th hole and it rolled into the canyon. After taking a drop, his next shot went into a greenside bunker and he wound up with a double bogey. Another bogey at the par-3 16th hole closed out his worst round since he also shot 76 in the final round of the 2022 Players Championship.
Like his playing partner, Thompson also made only one birdie, at the first hole. He will begin the final round tied for fourth, four shots behind Rodgers. Thompson, who has one career win, was even for the day after 10 holes but made bogeys at 11, 12, 15 and 17.
“I felt fine, but put yourself out of position here and it’s hard to make par and I did that on the back nine,” Thompson said. “Thankfully I didn’t do too much damage and I’ve still got a shot tomorrow.”
Posner is a freelance reporter.
