If you’re a golfer and find yourself in the company of Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, that is no small thing. It remains to be seen whether Scottie Scheffler’s career will progress to the Hall of Fame dimensions of those four men, but Scheffler can be proud of what he achieved at the Tour Championship to earn a mention with them.
Scheffler had enjoyed two special Sundays in Georgia—Masters victories in 2022 and 2024—and he had another one at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, winning for the seventh time in 2024 to join Miller (1974), Watson (1980), Woods (1999, 2000, 2006, 2007) and Singh (2004) as the only players to win that many tournaments or more during a PGA Tour season in the last half century.
With a $25 million first-place bonus on the line, this Scheffler victory ostensibly was more about dollars than legacy. Yet at crunch time on a warm, partly cloudy afternoon at the refurbished home course of Bobby Jones, after Scheffler had squandered the bulk of a huge lead, a slide punctuated with a shank, the matter at hand seemed to be more about grit than glitz.
Scheffler had arrived at East Lake for the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale in the driver’s seat the past two seasons and couldn’t close the deal. When things got shaky on the front nine Sunday—when he lost five strokes of his seven-shot advantage over Collin Morikawa in five holes—he went from looking like a lock to a vulnerable frontrunner who might again stumble.
Leading by six after four holes, Scheffler was two ahead after the seventh. Then, on the par-4 eighth, set up to be drivable at 324 yards, he shanked his second from a greenside bunker and scrambled for a bogey to a birdie for Morikawa, which drew the Californian within two. The inevitable was now interesting.
Scottie Scheffler on the 72nd hole of the Tour Championship. (Harrison Root photo)
The ninth hole, measuring 236 yards for the final round, had been stingy all week, no safe harbor for someone with a developing storm on his scorecard. Scheffler, though, had the answer to the tough par 3 and his Sunday blues in the form of an exquisite 4-iron, purely struck, that settled five feet from the flagstick. A birdie increased Scheffler’s margin at the turn, but he was just beginning to reassert himself. He wedged to three feet on the 10th and sank a 15-footer on the 11th for three straight birdies. Another 15-footer, for eagle on the par-5 14th hole, pushed his lead back to a handful of strokes over Morikawa. Thanks to Scheffler’s determination and skill, the doubt of 90 minutes prior was gone, replaced by a foregone conclusion that has marked much of his play over the past six months.
Spotted 10 strokes (under par) before he hit a shot at East Lake by virtue of leading in FedEx Cup points, Scheffler finished at 30 under, four better than Morikawa, who teed off Thursday at four under, and six ahead of Sahith Theegala, who started at three under. Morikawa (22 under) shot the lowest raw score, followed by Theegala (21 under) and Scheffler (20 under). Xander Schauffele, who was No. 2 coming in to start at eight under, tied for fourth at 19 under.
The starting strokes format is imperfect and still perturbs some who find it contrived. But it is hard to argue that this time it didn’t result in 2024’s outstanding player coming out on top after 72 holes at East Lake. In addition to earning his second green jacket, Scheffler won the Players Championship and four of the eight signature events among his titles. His PGA Tour victory total doesn’t include his Olympics gold medal, which was earned with one of his most impressive rounds, a closing 62 at Le Golf National outside Paris. Scheffler has held the lead in the FedEx Cup standings for the last 25 weeks of the season and has been No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking for 68 consecutive weeks.
Scheffler’s 13 career wins place him behind nearly six dozen men on the all-time list, but he is only 28 years old. He is bit older than Miller (27 when he won eight times in 1974)) and Woods (turned 24 in 1999, the first of his seven-plus win seasons), but younger than were Watson (31) and Singh (41) when they won seven and nine times respectively in their biggest years.
In the pair of Playoff events preceding the Tour Championship, Scheffler had moments when he didn’t seem like his usually imperturbable. He knew it and took pains to get back to his best self in Atlanta. The attitudinal reset, for which he credited caddie Ted Scott and others close to him, paid dividends, particularly when things started to go south on Sunday.
But a good mindset takes a golfer only so far. Scheffler’s pin-seeking 4-iron when he needed it most carried him back where he needed to be. In that way, it had much in common with a 3-wood to eight feet that Miller hit in a playoff at the 1974 World Open in Pinehurst. That beauty on the No. 2 course’s 16th hole sealed Miller’s seventh win of the season. Much has changed in elite golf in the many years since, but excellence, and winners, are easy to spot. Scheffler is low key, but his golf can shout. As he neared the clubhouse after winning, the man himself allowed himself a yell—of happiness and relief, for a season that stands out now and likely for a long time.
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