Scottie Scheffler arrived at the Open Championship with a burden of expectations. He won the Open last year and nearly completed a Grand Slam at the U.S. Open. Fans expect him to dominate links courses again. And for that, he had to start with a Scheffler-like opening round and not the Thursday scores he had throughout 2026. But was he able to achieve that? On most parts, yes.

After starting on the front nine at 9:58 am local time, Scheffler opened with pars, then caught fire with back-to-back birdies on 2-3 and 5-6 before a costly bogey on the par-3 7th. His second shot on the par-3 7th was too aggressive, landing on the fringe and costing him a bogey.

The back nine proved tougher: a bogey on 17 tempered an otherwise dominant display. He finished R1 with a two-under 68 and tied for 10th on the leaderboard. In fact, he is just two strokes short of the co-leaders Sungjae Im and Daniel Brown. The catch, however, is that there are a few golfers yet to finish their rounds.

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Scheffler’s driving was the story. His 341-yard high and 315-yard average outpaced his season norm by 3.3 yards, while his 92.9% accuracy shattered his 65.31% season average.

Apart from his driving, his approach was noteworthy, while his putting had mixed moments. He drained a 43-foot putt for birdie on 6 but missed a four-footer on 17 for bogey—a tale of two putting days. Something he would have liked to improve today was his around-the-green game.

Fans were expecting to find out if last week’s missed cut would have affected Scottie Scheffler. But instead of being frustrated because of that, he was calm. This composure was in his pre-round press conference, where he gave another philosophical answer, just like last year’s Open Championship.

“I feel at peace, yeah. I think sometimes it’s not like — it’s never the best thing to miss a cut, but like I said, sometimes having a couple days off, resetting, getting some time away — throughout the year, it’s like — when you look at other sports and if you look at a football team that’s made it really far each year in the NFL, it’s really hard to continue to do that each and every year,” he said.

It looks like the peace is helping him stay calm, unlike in other majors this year, when he looked frustrated and was even having intense discussions with his team.

What would be exciting to watch is whether Scheffler can maintain that peace tomorrow and improve his position or miss the chance to defend the title.