DUBLIN, Ohio (news agencies) — Winning has become a habit for Scottie Scheffler, except there was nothing typical about his victory Sunday at the Memorial.
He made only one birdie. He closed with a 2-over 74, his highest final round in two years. And victory wasn’t assured until Scheffler had the mettle to put a firm stroke on a downhill putt from 5 feet above the hole to take out the break.
It went right in the heart for a one-shot victory over Collin Morikawa, and a handshake with tournament host Jack Nicklaus. Their exchange said it all.
“You’re a survivor,” Nicklaus told him.
“Thanks,” Scheffler said. “Yeah, you made this place brutal today.”
Scheffler endured more stress than he wanted and got the victory everyone has come to expect, his fifth of the season — one week into the month of June — as he heads for another tough test next week in the U.S. Open.
Muirfield Village was so demanding with its ultra firm greens and swirling gusts throughout the afternoon that only six players broke par and the average score was a fraction under 75.
Scheffler, who started four shots ahead, never lost the lead. He never felt safe, either, not with Morikawa and Adam Hadwin on his heels all afternoon, and on a back nine where making par felt like hard work. Par is what it took on the 18th hole.
“This is a tough place to close out,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t do a whole lot great today, but I did enough.”
Just barely.
Scheffler was leading Morikawa by one shot and both hit approach shots that bounced hard and high off the green and into the rough. Both chipped to about 5 feet. Scheffler buried his putt to win, and the force of his fist pump to celebrate showed how tough this day was on him, and practically everybody.
Making the day even more special was a recent memory with Nicklaus at the Memorial, and cradling month-old son Bennett at his newborn’s first PGA Tour event.
Scheffler thought back to 2021, when he missed a 6-foot putt on the final hole that ended any chance of a playoff. Walking off the green, he recalls Nicklaus telling him one day Scheffler will make the putt on 18 “and I’ll be walking off to shake his hand.”
“It was pretty special thinking about that as I was walking over to shake his hand,” he said.
Morikawa, who played in the final group of both majors this year, holed a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-3 12th hole and stayed on Scheffler’s heels the rest of the way. He shot 71, the only one from the final 13 groups to break par.
Adam Hadwin was right there with them until closing with three straight bogeys for a 74 to finish alone in third.
Scheffler finished at 8-under 280 and won $4 million from this signature event and its $20 million purse. That pushes him over $24 million for the year, breaking the PGA Tour season earnings record — and it’s barely June — that he set last year in this era of rising purses.
He also become the first player since Tom Watson in 1980 to have won five times on the PGA Tour before the U.S. Open.
That’s next week at Pinehurst No. 2, and Scheffler will go to the U.S. Open as a huge favorite. This was his 11th consecutive tournament with a top 10.
Morikawa picked up $2.2 million and now has a big cushion as he tries to sew up the fourth spot for the Americans going to Paris this summer for the Olympics.
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