Entertainment

Scottie Scheffler’s incredible season gets a fitting ending

Published

3 weeks ago

September 2, 2024

There was only one acceptable outcome for Scottie Scheffler at the TOUR Championship. That made the FedExCup Playoffs finale one of the most stressful weeks of the year.

In the previous two seasons, Scheffler had relinquished the unique, two-stroke advantage that the TOUR Championship affords the FedExCup leader. Though he was the PGA TOUR Player of the Year in both 2022 and 2023 – the first player since Tiger Woods to win the award in consecutive years – he couldn’t lay claim to the TOUR’s season-long prize.

“It definitely, I think, leaves a bad taste in your mouth at the end of the year, especially when I start with the lead,” Scheffler said about his unsuccessful attempts to win the FedExCup.

He was determined to make this time different. He is too competitive and had worked too hard to settle for anything less. There was no other way to end an incredible season where he won everything from a green jacket to a gold medal.

“In the back of your head you know it’s going to come down to this,” Scheffler said, “and you have to have a great week.”

This time, he did. But he had to show one more time what separates him from his peers before he could finally lift the FedExCup for the first time.

It came in the middle of a final round that once seemed like little more than a formality. Scheffler had built a seven-shot lead with just 16 holes remaining. The lead dwindled to two, though, after his sand shot on the eighth hole caught a portion of the clubface that only amateurs find.

His shank, and the resulting bogey, allowed Collin Morikawa to pull within two shots. That’s when Scheffler’s caddie, Ted Scott, stepped in with a simple reminder.

“Just remember who you are,” Scott said. “You’re Scottie Scheffler.”

Scheffler responded by striping a 4-iron tee shot to within 3 feet of the ninth hole, the first of three consecutive birdies that put him five ahead. An eagle at the 14th hole, where Scheffler hit a 7-iron to 16 feet, made the final four holes the coronation that Scheffler’s season deserved.

Afterward, Scott had a message for his boss: “That’s the longest lead anyone has ever slept on.”

“It’s like eight months, knowing you’re going to have a lead here,” Scott explained. “It’s a tremendous amount of pressure, and he handled it super well.”