The World's Top 3 Struggled in Thursday Round at Quail Hollow

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00:00A lot of focus was put on this main featured group that went out early this morning.

00:04The top three players in the world all playing together.

00:07Scotty Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy.

00:10All had kind of different days in their own.

00:13Scotty ends up, of course, on the good side.

00:16He's only a couple, you know, he's right in the mix.

00:18He's two under.

00:19Rory's three over.

00:20Xander's finished at one over.

00:22I watched the three of them, Keith, all make an absolute mess out of that 16th hole.

00:28They all double bogeyed it.

00:30Scotty was able to recover.

00:31Rory, not so much.

00:33Well, you know, I doubt there's many times as a professional that Scotty has made double

00:38and he kept the honor on the next tee box.

00:40But he did it today from the 16th to the 17th.

00:44You know, people are going to get into it.

00:45There was no preferred lies today.

00:47So we've had all the rain.

00:49I tell you, you know, in the opening, I said five inches in the last five days here.

00:52The fairways have been soft.

00:54You know, Xander and Scotty, they caught some bad luck there.

00:57They caught some mud balls and we saw what happened.

00:59You know, mud puts a rudder on the golf ball and sometimes it's tough to control.

01:03Golf is a sport that's played outdoors.

01:05They both made double bogey there.

01:08Rory, I mean, Rory was just all over the place today.

01:10And then when he needed the putter, he absolutely did not get it.

01:13He lost over two strokes with the flat stick today.

01:16I mean, I think the only guy at the end of the day that's going to be more disappointing

01:18than Rory is going to be JT because a lot of people were loving him and backing him for sure

01:23because it makes sense.

01:24You know, he won the RBC.

01:26He won here in 2017.

01:28But as far as the big three go, is Scotty being Scotty?

01:31You know, Scotty says it's about as bad as I could have played today.

01:34He's still two under.

01:35And, you know, the leader will probably be five or six at the end of the day.

01:38Yeah.

01:39And look, Scotty is still, you know, he's a little bit shorter than what he was when he teed off.

01:44I mean, he's at plus 350.

01:45I just checked right now as the favorite, obviously.

01:48We always talk about opportunities.

01:51I know Rory was awful.

01:53He's nine shots back now.

01:5633 to one is not a number you normally see for Rory after the first round of a tournament.

02:03Any chance of nibbling, Keith, on 33 to one with Rory?

02:07I mean, it deserves a sprinkle, Michael.

02:09It certainly does.

02:10You're never going to get Rory on a golf course where he's won four times.

02:13The winner of this thing, let's say if it ends up being between 12 and 14 under par,

02:18then what you're telling me is that he's got to have one nuclear round

02:21and then two very good rounds in order to get back into the mix.

02:24I definitely think that he has the firepower to do it,

02:26especially on this particular golf course.

02:29So let me categorize that by saying if we were somewhere else,

02:32Oakmont or something, and he was that far behind, so be it.

02:34But the conditions here and his ability on this golf course to separate with that driver,

02:40for sure.

02:41And the driver, you know, it was all over the place a little bit today,

02:44but still, like, Rory could come back at 33.

02:47That's a huge number on him.

02:49I could definitely be talked into that.

02:51The guy that's impressed me the most this afternoon is Victor.

02:55And I was on Victor pre-tournament, and, you know, Victor looks really dialed in,

03:00and he's making those short putts, and he's playing aggressively like he does

03:03when he feels good about his iron game.

03:05And he's got that move going where he's really hitting the driver super straight.

03:10Victor, to me, is somebody who just, like, looks very, very steady,

03:14which would be scary for the field because then he can just keep doing his thing,

03:18you know, five under a day.

03:19Next thing you know, he's 16 under, and he wins, you know, the 107th PGA Championship.

03:23Thank you, Jim.

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