Scottie Scheffler's Record Cut Streak Ends at Scottish Open

The world No. 1's run stops at 78 events, days before he arrives at Royal Birkdale as a co-favorite

Scottie Scheffler's cut streak was the kind of number that quietly outlasted entire seasons: 78 consecutive events made, the longest active run on the PGA Tour, stretching back to his last missed cut at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship. It ended this week at the Genesis Scottish Open, where Scheffler shot even par across two rounds at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, finishing outside a cut line set around 2-under. Speaking afterward, Scheffler pointed to approach play and putting as the source of his frustration, a rare public accounting from a player whose consistency has become the tour's default assumption, and I'll admit the streak ending on a course this close to an Open Championship makes the timing sting more than the number itself.

The tournament itself belonged to Tom Kim, who closed with a 64 to finish at 17-under (263) and claim his fourth PGA Tour title, one shot clear of Min Woo Lee at 15-under. Rory McIlroy finished tied for seventh at 12-under, his fourth consecutive top-10 finish at the Scottish Open and a form line that reads very differently from Scheffler's week, with both players set to head to Royal Birkdale as co-favorites at +700 for The Open Championship, which begins Thursday, July 16.

What the missed cut actually signals

A single missed cut rarely means much on its own, but the context around this one gives it weight. Scheffler remains the World No. 1, a position he has now held for 157 consecutive weeks stretching back to May 2023, a streak entirely separate from the one that just ended and a reminder that one bad week at a Scottish Open doesn't undo two and a half years of dominance at the top of the rankings. What it does undo, at least for a week, is the sense that Scheffler is immune to the kind of stretch every player eventually hits. His 2026 season has produced one win, at the season-opening American Express, across 14 starts, with nine top-5 finishes and 12 top-20s, a runner-up finish at the Masters, and a playoff loss to Matt Fitzpatrick at the RBC Heritage. Compared with seven wins in 2024 and six in 2025, it is Scheffler's quietest season by win count since his breakout, which is what turns a missed cut from a blip into a data point worth watching heading into a major.

None of that changes how the sportsbooks see him. Scheffler and McIlroy remain co-favorites at +700 for The Open, and the two players arrive with almost mirror-image form lines: McIlroy's fourth straight top-10 at the Scottish Open against Scheffler's least prolific season in years, punctuated by a missed cut days before the year's third major. Whether that form gap actually shows up at Birkdale is exactly the kind of question a week like this one is built to raise and not built to answer.

What to watch at Royal Birkdale

The Open returns to Royal Birkdale for the 11th time since 1954, and the most recent playing is still the clearest reference point available: the 2017 Open, won by Jordan Spieth at 12-under (268), three clear of Matt Kuchar, for his third major title. That week is remembered as much for its moments as its margin, Spieth's recovery from a wayward tee shot on the 13th followed by an eagle-birdie-birdie finish that put the tournament away, and Branden Grace's third-round 62, a major championship scoring record at the time.

Birkdale's reputation among the rota's courses is unusual for a links venue: genuine dunes, firm turf, and heavy rough, but widely regarded as the fairest test in the rotation, with flatter lies, few blind shots, and less of the random bounce that defines some of its neighbors. That setup rewards straight driving and precise distance control over improvisation, a description that plays to Scheffler's tee-to-green strengths more than it does to a player who relies on inventive recovery shots. The defining variable is still the wind, which behaves differently across the course depending on whether a hole sits exposed on a high tee among the dunes or sheltered down at ground level, and the mid-round shift between the two is what turns a straightforward shot into a guessing game. For 2026, Mackenzie & Ebert's redesign of the par-3 15th, along with changes to the 5th, 7th, and 14th, means even the players who competed here in 2017 are facing a genuinely different test on parts of the course.

The Scottish Open's shifting coastal wind gave the field a taste of the kind of conditions Birkdale can produce, though it is worth being careful not to oversell that equivalence: North Berwick isn't a stand-in for Birkdale's specific demands, and how this week's form actually translates won't be clear until Thursday's opening round.

Elsewhere on tour, Chris Gotterup won the John Deere Classic at 20-under (264) with a closing 62, one clear of Max Homa, a reminder that Scheffler's week off the leaderboard was the exception across the tour, not the rule. For golf travelers already planning a trip around The Open, North Berwick and the surrounding East Lothian coastline make a strong week-before stop worth building into the itinerary before the coverage shifts south to Royal Birkdale.

Feature image: Royal Birkdale clubhouse and 18th green. Photo: Sue Adair / Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0