Wolff Shines in Houston

Wolff Wasn’t Letting Gusty Winds & Mud Balls Stop Him in Houston

So far Matthew Wolff has shown us that he is prone to a hot streak now and again. It seems that once he gets on a roll, there is just no stopping him. The 22-year-old from Oklahoma is up for all sorts of challenges.

With a pair of top-5 finishes in his last two starts, Wolff has clearly been on of late. Many of the golfers seemed to have underestimated the winds at Memorial Park while Wolff’s game was on point.

Using a 40-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole and some magnificent shots the rest of the way, Wolff briefly held the lead and eventually ended the third round of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open a single shot behind leader Scottie Scheffler. With just 18 holes remaining Wolff will look to capture his second PGA Tour title — the first came at the 3M Open in Minneapolis back in 2019. Scheffler is still seeking his first victory.

Wolff acknowledged that Memorial Park offered its own set of challenge, but seemed to maintain an optimistic outlook on what the rest of the weekend had in store.

“The course is playing really tough. The wind was definitely swirling, at least I thought. I was having a hard time figuring out the wind and that definitely cost me a few shots on 17 and on 7. So I think that was difficult, but I think it’s just firming up a little bit,” he said. “It’s making the fairways more important to hit because beginning of the week it was pretty soft because we had so much rain, so being in the rough wasn’t as penalizing, whereas being in the fairways now is just really important with how fast and firm these greens have gotten.

“The course is playing hard. It’s a really long golf course, which suits into my game really well, but at the end of the day you’ve got to still execute the shots, and I feel good about my game and whatever that holds tomorrow.”

While Wolff had been performing well under the circumstances, it didn’t help when he double bogeyed 17. The slip caused him to lose the lead. Wolff said while the slip was frustrating, it would do him no good to let the setback get to him.

In an interview, Matt Wolff Was asked about why no one was able to emerge with a comfortable lead yet. He said that due to the playing conditions, everyone seemed to be more evenly matched.  

“I’m not really sure. I feel like I had a couple mud balls today, so I feel like that’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just unfortunate that we got a lot of rain at the beginning of the week. I feel like everyone just kind of had one or two at least today. That’s definitely affected it a little bit,” he said. “I’ve definitely left quite a few shots out there. I’m really happy where I’m at and going into tomorrow, but at the end of the day I feel like I should definitely be a lot lower than I am. I made a couple stupid mistakes, bogeys on a par-5 and then just not erring on the correct side on 17.

“There’s a lot of things that I need to clean up on, but at the end of the day I’m in a good position going into tomorrow. As frustrated as I want to be at myself, I have to let it all go and just stay focused.”

As for Scheffler, he managed to stay consistent during his back nine. He sank two birdies in a row and pulled ahead of his opponents.

“I’m fairly satisfied with my round. I kept myself in position. Things were kind of getting a little iffy there for me for a little bit. I felt like I was playing good golf and I was 1 over through 13 holes and I felt like I was playing a lot better than that,” Scheffler said. “Definitely nice to make a few birdies down the stretch to get things back in the red.”

This article originally appeared on Yahoo Sports.