Scottie Scheffler went to the 1st tee on Saturday afternoon backed by the theatrics of a prize-fighter making his ringwalk. He crossed the bridge from the practice green to the grandstand alongside Bryson DeChambeau, the thumping bassline and clavinet riff of Sirius by the Alan Parsons Project rattling the aluminum beneath their feet: the same track that once summoned Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls thundered from the speakers, the closest US analogue to the All Blacks’ haka for spine-tingling pregame stagecraft. The scene was set for the world’s best golfer to spark a comeback, to pull the United States back from the edge of humiliation at Bethpage Black.
Instead, it became the overture to a historic dud.
