Scheffler is now one of three to top $100 million in career earnings and joins Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as those to win 20 events and four majors before age 30
LA QUINTA, Calif. — It has been as frequent a scene on the PGA Tour over the last two seasons. The world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, putts out to win a tournament and a few obligatory handshakes, his wife, Meredith, and their son, Bennett, rush to give him a hug.
Bennett was born in May of 2024, in the middle of his dad’s breakout season of seven victories, and he’s now been on this earth for half of Scottie’s 20 victories. He was but a gurgling lump at Muirfield Village when Scheffler captured the Memorial Tournament that June, but now 20 months old, the towheaded Bennett bounced on his bare feet on the cool green grass on Sunday at The American Express, his mom holding his hand. The inscription on the back of the boy’s jacket: Life is Good.
Life is good for the Scheffler family, though his competitors on the PGA Tour have to be rolling their eyes at another dominating performance that shows that the game’s most talented and gritty competitor has lost none of the drive that powered him to six victories, including two major titles, last season.
Scheffler started the fourth round on the PGA West Stadium Course in an eclectic threesome—one shot behind Si Woo Kim and tied with upstart 18-year-old Blades Brown. By the time the sun began to set behind the San Jacinto mountains, the two were peering through his vapor trails. Kim, who shot 72 and tied for sixth, fell by five shots and Brown (74, T-18) by eight as Scheffler, who made nine birdies, closed with a six-under-par 66 to finish at 27-under 261. He joins Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as the only men to surpass $100 million in career earnings.
Past major champion Jason Day (64), along with Ryan Gerard (65), Matt McCarty (68) and Andrew Putnam (68), climbed into a tie for second at 23 under, but the margin would have been greater if Scheffler had not pushed his tee shot at the island, par-3 17th and made double bogey. After Scheffler birdied the 16th hole to get to 29 under, he was set to at least tie the tournament record for the current course rotation, set by amateur Nick Dunlap in 2024.
Scheffler continues to perform at levels not seen since the first half of Tiger Woods’ career. With his 20th win in 151 starts, Scheffler is the second-fastest behind Woods to reach that milestone. Of greater significance, the 29-year-old Texan joined only Woods and Jack Nicklaus to have four majors and 20 wins before age 30.
“Any time you can get mentioned with those guys, it means you're doing some stuff right,” Scheffler said on Sunday evening.
But this is where he predictably added, “At the end of the day, it's not something that will occupy many of my thoughts day-to-day. When I was thinking about getting ready for this week I was just trying to prepare and do the best that I could. Hopefully we'll get out of here tonight and get ready to gear up again, get some rest, and then get ready to kind of do it all over again in a couple weeks. I don't spend too much time thinking about the milestones or anything like that.”
That is the chilling thing about Scheffler, of course. When he putted out at the 18th on Sunday, he softly raised his right hand but showed little emotion otherwise. He barely hugged caddie Ted Scott, giving him a one-armed slap on the back. For a guy so bent on winning, he seems so nonchalant before the trophy is raised.
So how does he process wins, or even celebrate?
“That’s a good question,” Scheffler said. “I think sometimes it’s hard to process when you’re in the moment.”
Getting into the final group, pushing yourself into a large lead, you have to stay in the moment, Scheffler said, and “so most of my day is to remain calm, focus on the things that I can executive, and then it’s a matter of going out and hitting shots.
“When the tournament ends,” Scheffler added, “it's kind of like, OK, it's almost like more of a relief now that the day's over and I'm able to win the tournament.”
When does the internal fist pump happen?
“Depends on the week,” he said with a grin.
As in, nearly every week. For the fifth time, Scheffler won in back-to-back starts, though these two came four months apart after he took what turned out to be the final edition of the Procore Championship in Napa Valley, as the U.S. Ryder Cup team prepared for Bethpage.
Orlando Ramirez
A year ago, Scheffler missed the early season and his date with the AmEx, which he hadn’t won, after a Christmas Day mishap in which a glass cut required hand surgery and time off.
There was no such layoff this year, and after diligent work in the offseason, the sharpness showed as Scheffler made 32 birdies against only three bogeys and the one late double.
“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,” Scheffler said. “So it's nice to see some of the stuff that I've been being practicing and working on has paid off. I work really hard at keeping my wedges sharp, so it was nice today to get some good numbers and be able to hit some wedges in there really close.”
In perfect playing conditions, he was tossing darts. Though Scheffler was third in the field in driving distance (323.70) for the week, he hit only eight fairways on Sunday, but it hardly mattered because five of his birdies on par 4s came inside five feet. He birdied all four par 5s—with his longest putt on those coming at 10 feet—and there were a couple of 80-foot eagle chips that settled to within two feet of the hole.
This is the kind of play that separates Scheffler from almost everybody else, and he provided insight into that.
“To fine-tune the skills that we have out here takes a lot of work,” he said. “Like the chipping. There's a big difference between hitting a chip to a foot versus five feet. If I hit it to foot, I'm probably never going to miss that foot putt. But if you hit it to five feet your percentages of making that putt go down.
“When you just kind of see that over the course of four days, that has an effect on where my game is at. So being able to have the whole offseason to prepare to come out here … to have that time to prepare and get my body and mind right in order to compete, I think really paid off early in the season.”
Next comes a week off before heading into the cauldron that is the WM Phoenix Open, where Scheffler won his first tour event in 2022. Think about it. That was only four years ago. And now it feels like little Bennett Scheffler will be going to prom before his dad lets up.
Category: General Sports
