World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler opened the 2026 Memorial Tournament with a one-over 73 at Muirfield Village Golf Club on June 4, lost his composure after a tee shot on the par-3 16th found the water, and said the course’s dense tree canopy makes the wind almost impossible to read. The round, the reaction, and the explanation that followed pushed Scheffler’s long-running views on golf course design back into public conversation.
Scheffler was chasing a third consecutive Memorial title at the Jack Nicklaus-designed course in Dublin, Ohio, one of the PGA Tour’s most demanding venues. He never found the form to mount a serious bid, finishing tied for 12th at four under. J.T. Poston won the tournament in a two-hole playoff over Ryan Gerard.
Scheffler’s week turned Thursday afternoon, on a tee shot shaped by a late wind shift.
The 16th hole
Scheffler reached the par-3 16th at even par after bogeys at 10 and 14. He hit what he described as a flushed 7-iron, expecting the wind to be down and off the right. It switched. The ball drifted left and found the water.
“That’s just another really good iron shot, and the wind switched from down off the right to pretty significantly in off the right,” Scheffler said after the round. “If it’s down off the right, that ball’s probably where I hit my wedge shot to.”
Television cameras captured the immediate aftermath. Scheffler, visibly agitated, vented at length toward caddie Ted Scott, who has been on his bag since 2021. “Absolutely flushed a 7-iron and we get the wind wrong and I’m in the water,” Scheffler said on the tee. “I don’t think you understand how frustrating that is. Like, that was a good shot. Really was, flushed it, liked the line.”
Scott’s response was measured: “It was a good shot.”
The exchange drew criticism from some observers, but Scheffler’s post-round comments steered the conversation toward the course itself. The average score at Muirfield Village on Thursday was 73.054. Gusting winds, firm greens, and deep rough made it one of the more punishing opening rounds on the PGA Tour calendar this season.
Trees, wind, and unpredictability
Scheffler connected the 16th-hole incident to a broader feature of Muirfield Village: its mature trees disrupt airflow in ways players cannot always detect from ground level.
“That’s always how it is around this golf course, just because you have a lot of trees and the wind can start bouncing around in different directions. I think that’s just another reason why it’s so hard.”
He described a round where quality ball-striking went unrewarded. “I felt like I was hitting some good shots, really,” he said. “I made a sloppy swing on 14, and outside of that, I hit what I felt was a lot of quality iron shots and didn’t really get much for it.”
The conditions tested Scheffler to the point where his assessment of the day was blunt. “I felt like I was going to shoot about 90 today,” he said in a PGA Tour post-round interview. “That’s maybe some of the worst I’ve hit it in a couple years out there and I still managed to shoot even par around a golf course that requires you to strike the ball really well.”
He shot a level-par 72 on Friday and made the cut at one over.
Scheffler’s argument about course design
Scheffler has spoken before about the modern trend toward tree removal in golf course architecture, and he has made clear he disagrees with it.
“That’s one of the reasons why I would like to get into some golf course design, because what they are doing to golf courses now I don’t like.”
“They take out all the trees, make the greens bigger and typically make the fairways bigger as well. So the only real barrier to guys trying to hit it as far as they want to or need to is trees. If I miss the fairway by 10 yards I am in the thick rough. If I miss it by 20, you are in the crowd.”
His position runs counter to a movement in golf architecture that has seen prominent venues thin or remove trees to restore original sight lines, improve turf health, and recover strategic width. Muirfield Village, which Nicklaus designed with Desmond Muirhead and opened in 1974, went through a major renovation in 2020 that rebuilt every hole, but the tree-lined corridors remain a defining characteristic.
That density is what makes the wind at Muirfield Village behave differently from tee to green, and it is what turned a flushed 7-iron into a penalty shot on Thursday. Scheffler has made clear that he sees trees as a key part of the challenge.
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Simon Bale
Simon Bale is the publisher of Golf Today. A low single-figure handicap golfer, he was previously a major shareholder and course reviewer for Top100GolfCourses.com for over a decade, starting in 2010. Through this role, he developed extensive knowledge of golf course design and architecture while playing more than 300 courses worldwide.
Simon is also the founder of Media Drive, a leading digital golf marketing agency which he successfully directed from 2008 to 2024.
As a lifelong student of the game, Simon takes an analytical approach to both equipment technology and swing mechanics—insights sharpened by two years working in a pro shop under the guidance of experienced professional Rae Sargent, alongside 15 years in equipment marketing. His deep understanding of the elite and professional game is further reinforced by his role as the father of elite-level Surrey county player Henry Bale, and by the strategic partnerships he forged with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour (DPWT) throughout his career at Media Drive.
He has now turned his full attention to covering all aspects of the sport for Golf Today, regularly attending tour events and visiting global golf destinations to deliver authentic, first-hand reviews and original imagery.