When Scottie Scheffler arrived at the 72nd green at the Memorial Tournament Sunday, he didn’t just have the game’s most prolific major champion watching him.
He also had his wife and son, watching him finish up a victory together for the first time.
Coming to the final hole up by just one shot over Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler completed the par save on 18 by drilling a five-foot par putt before Morikawa even had a chance to make his to post eight under and win the Memorial Tournament with host Jack Nicklaus looking on.
It’s Scheffler’s fifth win of the season, but first since the birth of his first child, Bennett, last month. After missing his last two victories at the Masters and RBC Heritage, Meredith was right on the 18th green with Bennett in hand to watch the win.
“Say, ‘Way to go, dad, I love you!,'” Meredith said for baby Bennett.
“This tournament is very special to us, and it will be for a long time because of this moment,” Scheffler said to CBS’s Amanda Ballionis.
Not only is the win Scheffler’s first as a father but also it’s the first of his now 11 PGA Tour wins to come outside of the months of February, March and April.
He’s the first player to win five times before the U.S. Open in a season since Tom Watson in 1980. All of his wins this season have come at either a major (the Masters), the Players or Signature events (Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, Memorial).
Muirfield Village proved to be one of the toughest tests all season Sunday, on the eve of the U.S. Open. Morikawa was the only player in the final 14 groups under par as the course played to an average just below 75, the hardest of the week and second hardest on Tour this season after the second round of the Masters. Just six players were under par out of the 52 who made the cut at the limited-field event.
Winner’s bag: Scottie Scheffler’s gear at the 2024 Memorial
Even Scheffler, who hadn’t played an over-par round all year before last month’s PGA Championship, succumbed to the difficult layout.
The World No. 1 started the day up three shots on Morikawa, Sepp Straka and Adam Hadwin. But after failing to take advantage of either of the front nine par-5s, Scheffler saw that lead cut to just one when he bogeyed the par-3 8th.
“I think the wind was up and it was from a direction where the downwind holes, it almost doesn’t really help,” Scheffler said. “The firmness of this greens make this golf course so difficult because the areas are already so small, and then when you get the wind up and the greens firm, it’s almost impossible sometimes to hit the ball in the right area.”
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 get within a shot himself at eight under.
The two were separated by a shot for most of the back nine until the 16th, the controversial par-3 tweaked by Nicklaus for this year’s tournament. Both players missed the green short right and Morikawa couldn’t get inside 20 feet with his chip and made bogey.
Scheffler putted from off the green and left his attempt 16 feet short, but his par attempt caught the left side of the hole and dropped to extend his lead to two once again.
“I got a pretty good read off Collin’s putt,” he said. “His putt kind of hung out there and he was more up on the slope than I was, and so I played a little less break than I thought, than I would have originally. So it was helpful kind seeing his putt there.”
The cushion was key as Scheffler dropped a shot after missing the green at 17.
Both players missed the green long at 18, leaving treacherous downhill pitches. Morikawa played first, nearly pulling off the miraculous with his ball scooting by the left side of the hole while Scheffler’s pitch from the heavy rough was nearly hit too good, landing softly and stopping five feet short of the hole.
“I thought it was breaking right,” Morikawa said. “Completely whiffed that one and it broke left. But that’s such a tough chip shot. All you had to do was just kind of nestle it on the green. I hit it exactly how I wanted it and you can’t complain when you’re hitting shots like that down the stretch and you’re doing things like that.”
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 is also Scheffler’s first since his bizarre Friday morning arrest before the second round of the PGA Championship. Scheffler was detained on his way to the golf course that day, but the Louisville Metro Police Department eventually dropped all charges.
“I call it compartmentalizing parts of my life,” Scheffler said. “So I have my off-course life and then I have my on-course life, you know, when I’m out here practicing and playing tournaments. I don’t show up to these tournaments just to play. I’m here to do my best and compete.”
