Scottie Scheffler had a fair share of close calls this year, but not Sunday in the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
He shot a final-round 4-under-par 66 and pulled away to win the tournament by eight strokes and extend his lead in the FedEx Cup playoffs in Memphis, Tenn.
“I felt like a week like this was coming,” Scheffler said. “I felt like I was on repeat all year just being like, ‘Hey, I’m playing solid. I’m close.’ It feels good to be answering some different questions at the end of this week.”
Scheffler is the World No. 1 golfer, but this marked his first victory since January.
“I have had some close calls this year,” Scheffler said. “I feel like I kept saying at the end of each tournament that I feel like I am playing pretty good, it’s just little things that aren’t going my way.”
He finished at 17-under 263 for an eight-stroke advantage on runner-up Si Woo Kim of South Korea at TPC Southwind, where the opening event of three tournaments in the FedEx Cup playoffs took place. Kim shot 68.
It was the tournament’s second-largest margin of victory in the last 30 years, though the largest winning gap at TPC Southwind.
“I felt like I’ve been in a good rhythm,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t hit maybe as many fairways this week, but I was really sharp with the irons, and I rolled it really good on the greens. That’s a good compensation if you’re going to try to have success out here.”
None of the other contenders made much of a push Sunday, while by midway through the round Scheffler’s lead expanded from two strokes to five.
Scheffler, who secured his 21st all-time victory on the tour, poured it on with birdies on Nos. 11, 13 and 16.
“I played solid golf all day, really all week,” Scheffler said.
Earlier, Scheffler took a strange bogey on the par-5 third hole when his blast from the bunker apparently struck a sprinkler head and rolled off the green and into the water. He didn’t have another blemish on his card.
Sam Burns (73) and Sweden’s Alex Noren (69) tied for third at 8 under, while Wyndham Clark (68) and South Korea’s Sungjae Im (74) shared fifth place at 7 under.
“I would have had to play pretty much a perfect round of golf to have a chance today,” said Burns, who was in the final pairing with Scheffler. “And I didn’t come close to that. Yeah, he played exactly how I expected him to.”
Noren notched birdies on three straight holes (Nos. 14-16) to climb the leaderboard.
“Just kept doing the same stuff, and it was quite a trip, and the game got a little bit better every day,” Noren said. “Just tried to almost enjoy the struggle in the heat as well.”
The best round of the day was turned in by England’s Justin Rose, the defending champion, with 64. But he was so far back that it only pushed him to even-par 280 for the tournament and into a tie for 39th place.
It was a frustrating tournament for Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, whose final-round 72 left him at 8 over and in 66th place for the tournament. He’ll advance nonetheless, perhaps encouraged with his five birdies across the final 10 holes Sunday.
“I guess nice to shake the rust off a little bit,” McIlroy said. “But I’m going to have to work pretty hard between now and next Thursday to feel like I have any sort of golf game to compete next week.”
The next stop in the playoffs is this coming week’s BMW Championship, which was won by Scheffler last year. Matt McCarty landed on the 50th and final spot into the field.
Im was the only one to play his way into the top 50 this week (from No. 53 to No. 40). That came at the expense of Keith Mitchell, who dropped from No. 49 to No. 51 as the first one out. Jordan Spieth only managed to reach 52nd in the points race and will not go to the BMW.
–Field Level Media
