For his fifth PGA Tour victory of the year, Scottie Scheffler perseveres in winning the Memorial.
Scottie Scheffler has made winning his habit, but his triumph on Sunday at the Memorial was anything from ordinary.
He only managed one birdie. His closing round of 2-over 74 was his best in the last two years. And it wasn't over until Scheffler proved he had what it took to win the break with a solid stroke on a putt from five feet above the hole.
With a one-shot triumph over Collin Morikawa and a handshake with event host Jack Nicklaus, it went straight to the heart. Their conversation was quite telling.
“You're a survivor,” Nicklaus told him.
“Thanks,” Scheffler said. “Yeah, you made this place brutal today.”
One week into June, Scheffler achieved the much-anticipated victory despite more stress than he had expected. He now faces another challenging test the following week at the U.S. Open. This was Scheffler's fifth of the season.
With its extremely firm greens and winds that swirled throughout the afternoon, Muirfield Village was so difficult to play that only six players broke par, and the average score was just around 75.
Scheffler led from the beginning by four shots and never let up. Even with Morikawa and Adam Hadwin chasing him all afternoon and a back nine when just staying in the hunt felt like a lot of work, he never felt comfortable. On the eighteenth hole, par was the score.
“This is a tough place to close out,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t do a whole lot great today, but I did enough.”
Just barely.
Both Scheffler and Morikawa fired approach shots that bounced high and hard off the green and into the rough, with Scheffler leading Morikawa by one shot. Each chipped out to roughly five feet. When Scheffler made his putt to win, the intensity with which he pumped his fist in celebration demonstrated how difficult this day had been for him and almost everyone else.
The day was made extra more memorable by a recent recollection of holding Bennett, his newborn baby, during his first PGA Tour tournament, and spending time with Nicklaus at the Memorial.
Scheffler thought back to 2021 when he missed a 6-foot putt on the final hole that ended any chance of a playoff. Walking off the green, he recalls Nicklaus telling him one day Scheffler will make the putt on 18 “and I'll be walking off to shake his hand.”
“It was pretty special thinking about that as I was walking over to shake his hand," he said.
At the par-3 12th hole, Morikawa, who participated in the last group of both majors this year, made a 30-foot birdie putt and trailed Scheffler the entire way. Out of the last 13 groups, he was the only one to shoot below par with a 71.
Up until the very end, when he closed with three consecutive bogeys for a 74 to tie for third place, Adam Hadwin was right there with them.
Finishing at 8 under 280, Scheffler took home the $20 million purse and $4 million from this iconic event. This puts him over $24 million for the year, shattering the record he established last year in this age of growing prizes for the PGA Tour season, and it's hardly even June yet.
In addition, he made history by being the first player to win five times on the PGA Tour prior to the U.S. Open since Tom Watson in 1980.
Scheffler will enter the U.S. Open as a heavy favorite. That takes place at Pinehurst No. 2 the following week. His 11th straight event in the top 10 was this one.
With $2.2 million under his belt, Morikawa will have plenty of room to maneuver as he attempts to secure the fourth position for the American team competing in the summer Olympics in Paris.
Before concluding the front nine with two bogeys, Hadwin was within one stroke of the lead. He continued to pursue the lead until finishing with two bogeys for a 74. Nevertheless, he advances over Corey Conners to take the second Canadian spot in the Olympics with his third-place performance.
The qualifiers for Paris are based on the world ranking following the U.S. Open.
Scheffler only had one birdie, a 10-foot putt on the sixth hole, and he blew two back-nine birdie opportunities inside 10 feet that would have given him a cushion.
However, he hit the largest one on the 16-hole par-3.
About ninety feet distant, Scheffler and Morikawa were both short of the extremely slippery green. Scheffler hit a putter, but it was a weak stroke that left him 15 feet short. In addition to chipping from the collar, Morikawa also struck a pedestrian chip about 20 feet away.
Scheffler buried Morikawa after he missed his par putt, giving him a two-shot advantage.
But after missing his last putt on the 17th, Scheffler found himself struggling to maintain his one-shot lead while playing the difficult 18th hole.
The supposedly hardest test in golf comes up next, and at Muirfield Village, players felt as though they had already completed one.
“You could look at it one of two ways,” Hadwin said. “Either it's good prep for next week or we just got our butts kicked before going into next week.”
This is Scheffler's eleventh career triumph and his twelfth overall. He has come from behind or won large thanks to a powerful finish. When things were tight at first, he withdrew. He almost lost a four-shot lead this time.
His best closing round since a 74 at St. Andrews during the 2022 British Open was that one. However, the book records it as yet another significant victory over the most formidable grounds. Together with The Players Championship and his second green jacket at the Masters, he has now won three signature events (the other two being Bay Hill and Hilton Head).
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