If Scottie Scheffler looked invincible when cruising to a five-shot win at Bay Hill last week, he’s taken that aura to another level after becoming the first player to successfully defend the Players Championship.
History made, but just for good measure, his final round 64 is also the lowest fourth round tally for a Players winner, and the five-stroke deficit he overturned is the largest final-round comeback recorded in the event’s 50-year history.
And all of this was achieved with a neck injury that meant he couldn’t swing with full vigour and was forced to finesse his way round TPC Sawgrass, becoming over reliant on his hands which is typically a recipe for disaster.
His round began with three pars, failing to take advantage of the par-5 second, but sprang to life when he holed out a 92-yard wedge shot on four for eagle and added birdies at five, eight and nine to make the turn at -5 for the day.
At that point, he trailed Xander Schauffele by one, and it still looked as though Schauffele, Wyndham Clark or Brian Harman were the most likely winners. Two more birdies back-to-back on 11 and 12 changed that, and another at 16 was enough to get him to the clubhouse at 20-under, bogey-free on the final day.
Schauffele had drawn back alongside Scheffler with a birdie at 12, but back-to-back pushed tee shots on 14 and 15 led to back-to-back bogeys and he was suddenly playing catchup. Clark also bogeyed 14, and Harman, who’d gotten it to -19 with birdie on 15, couldn’t pick up another on the closing three holes so came up one shy.
Both Clark and Schauffele birdied 16, the latter pulling up alongside Harman and the former one further adrift, and the equation was simple. For Schauffele, he needed to birdie 17 or 18 and Clark needed to birdie both. Both hit sublime tee shots on the 17th, feeding off the slope to leave short birdie putts. Schauffele missed his six-footer, Clark made no mistake on his.
The 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass is a tough place to make a three, and both left lengthy birdie putts. Schauffele’s slid harmlessly by, leaving Clark as the only man standing between Scheffler and history. Agonisingly for the reigning US Open champion, his ball caught a good portion of the hole, but was a little pacy, horseshoeing out and the loud groans from the crowd informed Scheffler, who was clipping wedges on the nearby range, that the tournament was his.
“I put up a good fight for four days,” Scheffler said afterwards. “That’s really all there was.
“I didn’t really know if I was going to be able to swing. Basically looking up to see the line on my putt was pretty difficult. It was hard to hit putts because right when I turned my head to look at the hole my brain’s sending pain signals or however that works, getting pain signals to my brain. It’s not easy to focus on making a putt when you’re in pain.
“But, you know, I figured as long as I could get through the round on Friday — Marnus did a good job kind of getting me going for Saturday. I felt a little bit better, like I said, and then Sunday, today, I felt pretty good overall.”
Of the Irish contingent, Shane Lowry will be the happiest of the three leaving Sawgrass after a final-round six-under 66 saw him climb 32 spots on the leaderboard to join Rory McIlroy at -9. It was another frustrating day for the world number two as he traded five birdies and five bogeys throughout the round on his way to a T19 finish alongside his fellow countryman and Ryder Cup teammate.
Seamus Power banished the ghosts of Saturday with a round that was nine shots better, shooting 69 on Sunday to finish tied for 64th.
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