Scottie Scheffler gets his 5th win in 2024, his first as a father, at the Memorial
Scottie Scheffler made a significant total of 18.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Sunday at the Memorial was a battle of wits between two first-time professional golfers.
So the tournament came down to the 72nd hole up-and-down.
Coming to the final hole by one shot over Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler completed a par save on 18 by drilling a five-foot par putt before Morikawa had a chance to putt eight under and win the Memorial Championship with the host. Jack Nicklaus is watching.
It was Scheffler’s fifth win of the season, but the first since the birth of her first child, Bennett, last month. After missing out on his last two victories at the Masters and the RBC Heritage, Meredith was fine on the 18th with Bennett on hand to watch for the win.
“It says, ‘The way I’m going, daddy, I love you!,'” Meredith said of baby Bennett.
“This tournament is very important to us, and it’s going to take a long time because of this moment,” Scheffler told CBS’s Amanda Ballionis.
Not only is Scheffler’s first win as a father but it is also the first of his now 11 PGA Tour wins to come outside of the months of February, March and April.
He is the first player to win five US Open titles in a season since Tom Watson in 1980. All of his wins this season have come at major (Masters), Players or Signature events (Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage. , Memorial).
Muirfield Village proved to be one of the toughest tests of the season on Sunday, the eve of the US Open. Morikawa was the only player in the final 14 under par as the course played to an average of 75-under, the most difficult of the week and the second most difficult on Tour this season behind the second round of the Masters. There are only six players under 52 who made it to the limited field.
Winner’s purse: Scottie Scheffler gear for the 2024 Memorial
Ryan Barath
Even Scheffler, who hadn’t played an extreme round in a year before last month’s PGA Championship, succumbed to the tough structure.
World No. 1 started the day with three shots on Morikawa, Sepp Straka and Adam Hadwin. But after failing to convert any of his front nine on the par-5, Scheffler saw his lead cut to one when he birdied the par-3 8th.
Hadwin was the first player to close the gap, but Morikawa, playing in the final pairing with Scheffler, made three birdies in six holes to shoot himself to 8 under.
The two are separated by a shot on most of the back nine until the 16th, a controversial par-3 tweaked by Nicklaus for this year’s tournament. Both players missed the short right of the green and Morikawa couldn’t get within 20 feet of his chip and made bogey.
Scheffler left the green and left his 16-foot effort short, but his putt caught the left side of the hole and landed to extend his lead to two again.
The cushion was crucial as Scheffler dropped the shot after missing the green on 17.
Both players missed the green for a long time at 18, leaving treacherous fields to drop. Morikawa played first, almost miraculously getting his ball out of the hole when Scheffler’s pitch from the hard rough almost hit the fairway, dropped slightly and stopped five feet short of the hole.
With both players about the same distance from the hole, Scheffler made his putt first, putting the tournament out of reach before Morikawa converted his par putt anyway.
The win was also Scheffler’s first since his unusual arrest Friday morning before the second round of the PGA Championship. Scheffler was arrested on his way to the golf course that day, but the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department eventually dropped all charges.
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