MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Scottie Scheffler thought the bunker shot was ideal until he saw it bounce hard off a sprinkler, roll across the green and disappear down the slope and into the water. A sure birdie turned into a bogey. His two-shot lead Sunday in the FedEx St. Jude Championship was down to one.
For a player who has endured five runner-up finishes in nearly seven months of close calls, Scheffler had reason to wonder what was next to go wrong. He asked caddie Ted Scott as they walked over to take a penalty drop, “When is this going to stop happening?”
Almost immediately, as it turned out.
Scheffler drilled a mid-iron to 10 feet for birdie two holes later. He holed a 20-foot birdie on the next. A two-shot lead at the start quickly turned into a runaway. He closed with a 4-under 66 for an eight-shot victory, the largest margin in 68 years at the TPC Southwind.
“I felt like I had some close calls this year, so it was nice to finish the tournament off,” Scheffler said.
It helped to post a 61 in the second round and keep the lead going into Sunday. This was his 11th straight time he converted a 54-hole lead into a win.
This victory was the 21st of his career — all since 2022 — and it ended nearly seven months without a title during a season that has been marked by astonishing consistency but only one trophy to show for it from his season opener at The American Express in the California desert.
“I felt like a week like this was coming,” Scheffler said. “I felt like I was on repeat all year just being like, ‘Hey, I’m playing solid. I’m close.’ It feels good to be answering some different questions at the end of this week.”
He finished at 17-under 263, eight shots clear of his Dallas neighbor Si Woo Kim, who closed with a 68 to finish eight shots behind. The previous record was John Cook winning at TPC Southwind by seven shots in 1996.
Scheffler has now won 10 of his 21 tour titles by four shots or more.
Sam Burns, one of Scheffler’s best friends in golf, played with him in the final group and took double bogey on the par-5 third hole. He shot 73 and tied for third with Alex Noren (69).
“I don’t think it would have mattered if I played well,” Burns said. “He was going to be tough to beat today.”
Scheffler won $3.6 million from the prize fund, and he clinched an additional $23 million in bonus money for being No. 1 in the FedEx Cup through next week’s BMW Championship. No one can catch him. No one is particularly close in the game at the moment, even when he’s not piling up trophies.
Scheffler now has two victories, five runner-up finishes and five other top 4s in another stellar year that until Sunday was marked by his lack of winning compared with previous years. The TPC Southwind was the course he had played the most times without winning, and the FedEx Cup playoffs opener had been the only postseason tournament he had yet to win. All that changed.
Scheffler’s most recent start was another runner-up finish at the 3M Open in Minnesota, another rally that came up short. But it was those two weeks at home that made the difference.
“I felt like I found something just getting my hands on the club,” he said. “I had a really good kind of prep week coming in, probably the best I played at home over the course of this year. I didn’t really feel like I needed to be on the range hitting balls. I was just getting out playing, competing.”
More than a few of those games were with Kim, who earlier this year said of Scheffler, “He calls me ATM.” Kim moved to a career-best No. 13 in the world.
Im wound up with a 75 to tie for fifth, but it was enough for the South Korean to move from No. 53 into the top 50 who advance to the BMW Championship next week in St. Louis. Im kept alive his chances of reaching the Tour Championship every year since he was a rookie in 2019.
Im bumped out Keith Mitchell, who stood in the water left of the 18th fairway to play a shot from the bank as he tried to give himself his best chance. That shot tumbled into the water, he made bogey and narrowly missed out.
So did Jordan Spieth, who needed to close with four pars to reach the BMW Championship for the first time since 2023, and finished with a bogey from the water on No. 15 and three pars for a 70.
The top 50 who advance also are assured of playing all the $20 million signature events next year.
Scheffler put himself squarely in the mix for a fifth straight PGA Tour player of the year during a season in which no one has stood out based on titles alone. The body of work has been impressive, and Scheffler still has two tournaments remaining.