Honesty always has been in Scottie Scheffler’s bag, as the headlines before the start of The Open underscored, and he was wringing truth once more Thursday after firing a 3-under par at Royal Portrush.

Scheffler’s rainy round of 68 was among the morning-wave best in Northern Ireland thanks to a composed finish despite hitting only three fairways.

“I actually thought I drove it pretty good. I don’t know what you guys are seeing. When it’s raining sideways, it’s actually, believe it or not, not that easy to get the ball in the fairway. Thank you guys all for pointing that out,” Scheffler said at the end of Thursday’s 18.

Scheffler credited his putting with keeping him on the first page of the leaderboard after failing to gain strokes on the greens in the Scottish Open last week. Scheffler was a touch testy when pressed for what made his short stick more magical on Thursday than it was last week.

“Different greens, different surface. These greens, it’s just different,” Scheffler said. “I don’t know how you want me to elaborate on that.”

Wayward tee shots were to blame for Scheffler’s bogeys on Thursday on a pair of par 4s at No. 9 and No. 11.

He closed with a collective five on the par-3 16th and the par-4 17th plus a clutch putt to par No. 18 and said the greens at Portrush were “definitely smoother” than the surface in Scotland.

“Putting is one of those deals where, especially when there’s a little bit of activity on the greens, you can hit a lot of good putts that don’t go in,” Scheffler said. “I’m trying to do my best to be perfect every week, but some weeks the putts just aren’t going in, and did a good job battling last week to finish top 10.”

Scheffler stuck to his guns when asked Thursday to revisit much-discussed comments about how meaningful and gratifying victories can be relative to the amount of time, effort and sacrifice it takes to take home a trophy.

“I think I try to be as honest as I can with y’all, with the stuff that I’m willing to kind of say. At times I feel like maybe I should be a little less honest. Maybe I shouldn’t have said the stuff I said yesterday because now I’m going to get asked about it more,” he said. “But really it’s just a matter of perspective, and I’ve had some players come up to me and say that they feel and think the same things. If anybody has disagreed with me, they haven’t said it to my face yet, so I don’t know what the reaction would be. But overall just glad to be out playing golf and competing again.”

–Field Level Media