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.”
Scheffler started the week at 10-under par and then shot 20-under (65-66-66-67, 264) on the following 72 holes. His total of 30-under par was four strokes better than Collin Morikawa, who shot the week’s low 72-hole score (66-63-67-66, 262). Sahith Theegala finished third at 24 under; he was the only other player within 10 shots of Scheffler.
Scheffler led the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+3.4), Greens in Regulation (54 of 72) and Driving Distance (338.6 yards). He was second in Driving Accuracy (37 of 56 fairways) and third in Strokes Gained: Putting (+4.1). It was another display of Scheffler’s unmatched ballstriking ability, and an opportunity to showcase the improved putting that was key to his dominant season.
“Last year I was playing good golf and I wasn’t able to make the key putts at the right time, and this year I was,” Scheffler said. “That’s really just the difference.”
Scheffler may have been voted the PGA TOUR’s top player in each of the previous two years, but his seven wins in 2024 were more than the previous two years combined. His 13 wins since February 2022 are more than double any other player. Including his Olympic gold medal, which doesn’t count as an official PGA TOUR win, he was victorious eight times in 2024 alone.
He will be the reigning FedExCup champion for the next 12 months, and it would likely take at least that long to supplant him from atop the world ranking.
“I’m proud of the results,” he said. “It’s something I try not to focus too much on, but at the end of the day, being able to win tournaments is a great feeling, and it’s what we work towards, and to be able to have as many wins as I have this year is really special.”
Scheffler won on courses both historic and modern, short and long, wide and narrow. From the expansive canvas of Augusta National to the cozy confines of Harbour Town. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer could not stop Scheffler with the thick rough and firm greens that are the trademarks of their tournaments, nor could Pete Dye and his penal creations.
Scheffler held a magic wand for his first win, the mallet putter that he debuted that week, and his baby boy for the eighth and final victory of 2024. Little Bennett Scheffler has only been around since May but already has seen his father hoist four trophies. He still may fit inside the FedExCup.
It was a year that included a birth and an arrest, and he was victorious through a protest and an injury that almost forced him out of THE PLAYERS. But the trophies remained the biggest story. Through it all, he was unapologetically himself, sticking to the same philosophy that got him this far.
He relies on a simplicity that belies his achievements. Golf is supposed to be a complex game, but Scheffler sticks to the same fundamentals that his swing coach, Randy Smith, has been emphasizing since Scottie was a kid.
“Simple sometimes works best,” Smith said. It did this year.
Warming up before the third round of the TOUR Championship, he was the only player on the practice range without a launch monitor sitting next to him. He uses a practice club with the same instructional grip that is often given to beginners, and he inspects the clubface, ensuring it’s square, before each practice shot. He often looks at his feet on the course, trying to focus on only his next step.
“I’ve always taken golf very seriously,” he once said. “I think that’s why I try to focus so much on the present, just staying present.”
The final week of the FedExCup Playoffs is a challenge to that mindset, though, because its format can almost present a premature coronation. The two-shot advantage that the FedExCup leader holds once he sets foot on the property is a reflection of all he’s accomplished during the season. There’s the temptation for reflection even though the final standings are still four rounds from being determined. There’s also a TOUR player’s inherent pride, which makes losing after being given a lead unacceptable.
“I should win the tournament if I’m starting ahead of people. That’s how I feel,” Scheffler said. “So maybe the last couple years I’ve put too much pressure on myself to perform … but this year I did a good job of just staying in it mentally and keeping my head down.”
Scheffler is intensely competitive, whether at home in Dallas, where he gives 20 strokes to the mid-handicap members at Royal Oaks, or on the PGA TOUR. That’s why winning the FedExCup was so important to him. He didn’t want another season where there was a dichotomy between the vote of his peers for Player of the Year and the final scoreboard.
There is a finality to the TOUR Championship that adds significance. With the pursuit of the FedExCup complete, there is space to ruminate on the result. There is no next tournament or venue to focus on. That’s what made his loss here two years ago so difficult. He described it as “pretty challenging … to handle” and said he was “very sad” after losing a six-shot lead to Rory McIlroy in the final round.
Sadness is not an emotion that is readily confessed to by professional athletes, who hope to convey an intimidating air, but the 2022 TOUR Championship represented a disappointing end to an otherwise impeccable season that rapidly changed the course of Scheffler’s career. He won four times in a six-week span, earning both his first PGA TOUR title and his first major in the process. He rapidly ascended to world No. 1, as well. Losing the TOUR Championship may have been the only thing that didn’t go his way.
“I didn’t expect things to finish that way,” he said.
Scheffler won twice last year, including his first PLAYERS, to return to East Lake as the No. 1 seed. He broke par in just one round at the TOUR Championship, however.
Scheffler was still No. 1 when this year began, but he also was amid a winless drought that stretched to 51 weeks before he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.
That duration was defined by his struggles on the greens. It was a frustrating span because his putting kept him from capitalizing on his peerless ball-striking, and it was a shortcoming that was the source of constant questions. It led to the most scrutiny he’d faced in his reign as the game’s top player.
Scheffler had been experimenting behind the scenes with new putters, however, and had enlisted putting coach Phil Kenyon the previous fall. It was at Bay Hill that Scheffler debuted the mallet putter that he would use in each of his eight wins this year.
“I felt like I was kind of gradually building towards something,” he said.
He committed to relying on the same athleticism that set him apart on long shots instead of obsessing over mechanics. He also ceased seeking perfection on the greens.
He won by five strokes at Bay Hill while finishing fifth in Strokes Gained: Putting (he led the field in that metric in the final round). It was the start of a five-tournament stretch where he won four times, and he was one 6-footer in Houston from potentially sweeping them all.
A week after his win at Bay Hill, he became the first player to win back-to-back PLAYERS titles despite a neck injury that nearly forced him to withdraw. Then he won a second Masters with an exquisite display of ball control on a blustery week at Augusta National. By winning the following week, he became the first player since Bernhard Langer in 1985 to win at Augusta National and Harbour Town in consecutive weeks.
It was reminiscent of Scheffler’s breakout season in 2022 when he won four times in six starts – except this time, he just kept going. He was away for a month for the birth of his first child, then returned to a chaotic week at the PGA Championship. He still finished in the top 10 at Valhalla, then had two wins (and a runner-up) in his next four starts. Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament presented by Workday was Scheffler’s first win as a father. At the Travelers Championship, he beat Tom Kim in a playoff after protesters stormed the 72nd green.
The Olympics may not count towards his PGA TOUR win total this season, but it was among his most impressive feats of the year. His Sunday 62 included a 29 on his final nine to make up a large deficit and win the gold medal.
Scheffler leads the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green for the second consecutive year, and he is on pace to lead in Greens in Regulation for the third straight season. He is gaining nearly 2.5 strokes per round from tee-to-green, almost a shot per round better than Xander Schauffele, who ranks second in that statistic. And his putting is now a tick above average (+0.03 strokes gained per round), which is all he needs.
It was an incredible season that got the ending it deserved. Scottie Scheffler is finally a FedExCup champion.
Source: PGATour.com
