PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Scottie Scheffler was fearless on a TPC Sawgrass course that may jangle the nerves on each gap. The wind was getting stronger, the targets regarded smaller, and all he needed was to verify his lead bought bigger in The Gamers Championship.
“You possibly can’t limp in on this golf course,” he stated. “You have to hit the photographs.”
He did each little bit of that Sunday in a masterful efficiency that solely enhanced his popularity as a participant who’s at his finest when taking part in one of the best on the earth.
Scheffler ran off 5 straight birdies in the midst of his spherical, constructed a 6-shot lead and left all of the drama to everybody else on his solution to a 3-under 69 to win the richest prize on the PGA Tour by 5 photographs.
As a half-dozen gamers tried to make a sport of it, Scheffler took on the daunting Gamers Stadium Course as if he have been taking part in alone.
And that is how he made it look.
“Simply appears like he is calm, simply doing his enterprise, not likely worrying what everybody else is doing and churning out birdies,” Cam Davis stated.
The victory was price $4.5 million and despatched Scheffler again to No. 1 on the earth for the second time this yr. He now has six victories in his previous 27 begins on the PGA Tour, together with the 4 wins he had final yr culminated by his Masters title.
When he poured in a 20-foot par putt on the ultimate gap, Scheffler had the biggest margin of victory within the Gamers since Stephen Ames gained by 6 in 2006.
“I bought sizzling in the midst of the spherical and tried to place issues away as rapidly as I can,” Scheffler stated.
He was main by 5 and standing on the sixteenth inexperienced when he regarded throughout the lake and noticed Davis hit his tee shot over the island inexperienced on the par-3 seventeenth after which Tommy Fleetwood come up quick.
That was the objective. Construct an enormous lead in order that even when he joined the dozen gamers who hit into the water on Sunday, at the very least it could not value him. Like every little thing else for Scheffler on this present day, it was no downside. He hit an excellent shot to 10 ft, made par and the remaining was simple.
After which the celebration was on together with his spouse, mother and father, sister and 87-year-old grandmother, who saved tempo with him for a lot of the day.
That is one thing the strongest discipline of the yr could not do.
Tyrrell Hatton birdied his final 5 holes for a 65, ending when Scheffler was making the flip. Viktor Hovland (68) and Tom Hoge (70) have been 7 photographs behind in a tie for third, every making practically $1.5 million from the $25 million purse.
Scheffler, who completed at 17-under 271, grew to become solely the third participant to win on the TPC Sawgrass with all 4 rounds within the 60s.
Min Woo Lee of Australia, making his Gamers Championship debut, briefly was tied for the lead however completed with a 76.
Lee made one too many blunders, not that it could have modified something the best way Scheffler lit up the TPC Sawgrass. Considered one of them got here on the par-4 fourth, when Lee was tied for the lead. He chipped out of the tough solely to have his third shot spin again into the water, resulting in a triple bogey.
By the point he recovered, Scheffler was racing away.
It began when Scheffler chipped in from the collar of a bunker on the par-3 eighth, and he closed out the entrance 9 with an aggressive play on the par-5 ninth that arrange a chip-and-a-putt birdie.
Hatton teed off two hours forward of Scheffler, and he capped off his closing run of 5 straight birdies as Scheffler headed for the again 9. Hatton, the primary participant to shoot 29 on the again 9 at Sawgrass on a Sunday, posted a 12-under 276.
The wind was gusting near 30 mph, which solely provides to the difficulty on this course. Scheffler stayed aggressive, although, holing an 18-foot birdie on the tenth, two-putting from 70 ft on the par-5 eleventh and taking over the reachable par-4 twelfth with a 3-wood to pin excessive good of the inexperienced. That arrange his fifth straight birdie, and a 6-shot lead.
For the ultimate two hours, it was a cash seize for everybody else — and a few wasted money for individuals who fell sufferer to the wind and water and the merciless Gamers Stadium Course.
Hatton, who began the ultimate spherical 9 photographs behind, completed off his 5 straight birdies with a 4-iron out of the pine straw and across the bushes to twenty ft.
He gained $2,725,000 — simply over $1 million greater than for his Bay Hill victory in 2020.
Hideki Matsuyama was inside 1 shot — this was earlier than Scheffler went on his birdie run — solely to take a double bogey on the 14th, fail to birdie the par-5 sixteenth and bogey the 18th. He was 7 beneath for the spherical by 13 holes and needed to accept a 68.
The largest meltdown belonged to PGA Tour rookie Taylor Montgomery, who was tied for fourth till a bogey on the fifteenth, a double bogey on No. 16 (with out hitting within the water) and two balls within the water on the seventeenth — a full shot and a chip — for a quintuple-bogey 7.
He dropped 40 spots on the leaderboard, and, at No. 55 on the earth, that saved him from cracking the highest 50 within the rating and sure securing a spot within the Masters.
Finally, although, this was a one-man present.
Scheffler gained for the sixth time in 13 months, all of them towards a few of the strongest fields in golf. Commissioner Jay Monahan launched him because the PGA Tour participant of the yr in 2022, and now the Gamers champion in 2023.
“He is in a great place to have the ability to proceed to do that some time,” Jordan Spieth stated.
