Scottie Scheffler continued his torrid play at Muirfield Village on Sunday, capturing his 5th PGA Tour victory of the season.
Scheffler, who recently welcomed a son into the world, didn’t have his best stuff on Sunday, but his 4 shot lead heading into the final round was enough to guide him to victory. The 27 year old finished 1 stroke clear of Collin Morikawa at 8 under par after shooting an uncharacteristic +2 in the final round.
Scheffler never relinquished the lead on Sunday, but felt pressure from both Morikawa and Canadian Adam Hadwin at various times throughout the round. The demanding conditions at Muirfield meant that only 11 players in the entire field finished under par for the tournament, with several blow ups on Sunday sending players toppling down the leaderboard.
“This is a tough place to close out,” Scheffler said after the round. “It was a fun test of golf. I like when it gets this hard. I didn’t do a whole lot great today, but I did enough.”
With 5 wins in his last 8 outings, there’s no debate that Scheffler is the best golfer on the planet at the moment. The narrative instead turns to how many more he can win before the season closes out.
With the $4M he’ll take home from this weekend, the American has already broken the single season PGA Tour earnings record, eclipsing his own mark of $21.01M set in 2023. He also becomes the first player since Justin Thomas in 2016-17 to win 5 events in the same year, and we’re not even halfway through June yet.
With 11 straight top 10 finishes, Scheffler will head into the US Open next weekend at Pinehurst No. 2 as the presumptive favourite to win it all.
Rounding out the top 5 were Morikawa (-7), Hadwin (-4), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (-3), followed by a logjam of players at -2. With the World Golf Rankings being finalized after the US Open, there’s increased pressure to put on good showings in recent weeks. The top players following next weekend’s event will be chosen to represent their countries at the summer games in Paris later this year, meaning that there’s still plenty at stake even for those who find themselves well outside the top 10 next Sunday.
The 124th edition of the US Open kicks off on Thursday, June 13th.
Photo: Titleist. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.