Scottie Scheffler wasted little time in returning to the winner’s circle as the world number one cruised to victory at the PGA Tour’s American Express Championship in Palm Springs, California.
The world number one entered the final round in a share of second place alongside 18-year-old Blades Brown and one behind Si Woo Kim – they played together as the final trio – with Wyndham Clark and Eric Cole a shot behind and a further three directly behind them.
On a golf course that typically gives up plenty of birdies, Scheffler made nine of them, building a lead that stretched as far as six strokes before a late double bogey reduced his advantage to four with only the 18th to play.
“There’s always a certain amount of rust when it comes to playing competitive golf,” Scheffler said. “You can simulate as best you can at home, but you can only get into the heat of the moment when you’re posting a score and you’re in contention when you’re at a tournament. So it’s nice to see some of the stuff that I’ve (been practicing) and working on has paid off.”
He had four birdies in a six-hole stretch on the front nine to blow past Kim, Brown and the other contenders who’d made an early move.
Scheffler’s win was his 20th on the PGA Tour — all coming in the last four years — which also earns him a lifetime membership. More indicative of his dominance in the game is winning nine of those 20 tournaments by four shots or more.
He also joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to have 20 PGA TOUR titles and four majors before turning 30.
“Pretty wild,” Scheffler said. “It’s been a great start to my career. It’s been special. I try not to think about that stuff too much. I was just trying to do the things I needed to do to be prepared.”
Jason Day, Ryan Gerard, Matt McCarty and Andrew Putnam shared second place at -23, while Brown struggled to a two-over 74 that saw him slip outside the top 10 placings that he required to gain entry to next week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.
After a week where he played four Korn Ferry rounds in The Bahamas and flew straight to California, becoming the first player to play PGA Tour sanctioned rounds on eight consecutive days, he could only see the positives.
“Eight rounds I know sounds like a lot, but I was having a lot of fun,” he said. “You’re telling me I get to play in a PGA TOUR event and to play with Scottie Scheffler and see him win it, that was insane.
“I got some things I got to sharpen up, and hopefully we see if we can do what Scottie’s doing.”
It was a disappointing final round for Séamus Power as a level-par 72 saw him fall into a share of 63rd place.
The Waterford man made just two birdies and played the four par-5s in a collective one-over, missing out on a decent chance to bank early season FedEx Cup points in a season where he starts with conditional status having finished outside the top 100 in the 2025 rankings.
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