With birdies on three of the first four holes on Sunday, he took the lead and cruised to a six-shot victory over Tom Kim at the Hero World Challenge 2024 for his ninth win of the year.
‘It feels good,’ Scheffler said. ‘I’ve been lucky to get some wins from really good golf. This was another week where I played really well and I was able to see some good results from that. Overall it’s been a pretty fun year.’
Has it ever been. Scheffler closed with a birdie on the last hole to shoot 9-under 63 at the Albany Club, a 72-hole total of 25-under 263 and successfully defend his title at the unofficial 20-man event hosted by Tiger Woods.
‘You were in my belly last time,’ Meredith Scheffler told the couple’s eldest child, son Bennett, who arrived in May and was carried around the course by his mother in a baby carrier.
Scheffler, a world No. 1 and FedEx Cup champion, has won seven times on the PGA Tour, including the Masters, Players Championship and Tour Championship. He also won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics, which he considers victory number eight.
‘You have to enjoy them all, they’re all so unique,’ said Scheffler’s caddy, Ted Scott. ‘It’s good to see him back in the saddle.’ And he smiled wryly before rushing to the airport to catch a flight.
Scheffler opened with a 67 and followed with a bogey-free 64 to take the lead. But he shot a rather pedestrian 69 in the third round and trailed Justin Thomas by one stroke before the final round. Thomas wedged from 112 yards to 3 feet at the first to protect his one-shot lead. But he made bogey on Nos. 2 and 5 (and a birdie on the third) to lose the lead and never regained it. Scheffler now shot lower than Thomas, who closed in 71 and was alone in third place eight of the last nine times they were paired.
‘I would have obviously liked to put a little more pressure on Scottie going into the last nine,’ Thomas said. ‘But I mean, you know, obviously I can’t expect good things to happen when I’m up by one over Scottie and I only shoot one under on Sunday.’
Scheffler stormed out of the gate to let it be known that he meant business. He made an eight-foot birdie on the first and reached the par-5 third hole in two and made two putts for another birdie. Then a blow to his competitors’ hopes on the fourth: he holed a 49-foot birdie putt.
‘Whenever you see a long putt go in like that, it’s always a good feeling and good momentum and I try to use that as good fuel for the rest of the round,’ he said.
Kim, who finished at 68, momentarily reduced Scheffler’s lead to one with a four-foot birdie on the ninth before Scheffler converted his four-foot putt for birdie on the back nine in the next group. He kept the pedal pressed on the back nine, making birdie on the 10th and going for flags on the 13th. He dropped the 6-foot putt using the claw grip, taking the palm of his right hand off the club, which he used from about 15 feet and in this week’s competition for the first time. ‘It’s over,’ said one fan, perhaps prematurely, but he was not wrong.
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