Scottie Scheffler Wins Memorial Tournament to Claim Fifth Victory of the Season
It is Scottie Scheffler’s world, and the rest of the sport of golf is just living in it. Scheffler was able to hold off Collin Morikawa by one stroke to win the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village for his fifth win of the season in just eight starts. The world’s number one ranked player is the first PGA Tour player since Justin Thomas in the 2016-17 season to win five times in a season, and it is only the beginning of June. The record for most wins in a year is held by Byron Nelson who won 18 times in 1945. However, the post-1950 record is held by Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh who each had nine victories in 2000 and 2004, respectively.
Scheffler was able to take the lead into the weekend after firing off rounds of 67 and 68 to open the tournament. As the rest of the golf world has come to learn, it is extremely difficult to chase down Scheffler on the weekend when he has the lead, and this weekend was yet another example of that. Scheffler did not play exceptional golf on Saturday and Sunday as he shot rounds of 71 and 74, respectively, but no one from the field was able to make a move large enough to catch him. Morikawa gave it his best effort, but his 71 in Sunday’s final round was not enough. Morikawa shot a one-under 35 on the front nine, but he was unable to find any consistency on the back nine, with just one birdie and one bogey on the back nine. The next closest player was Canadian Adam Hadwin, who finished at four-under-par and earned himself an automatic qualifying bid to the Open Championship. The rest of the top five was rounded out by Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Matt Fitzpatrick, who finished at three-under and two-under, respectively.
To help put Scheffler’s current historic run into perspective, he has not finished lower than tied for second in any of the last eight tournaments he appeared in. He is just the second player ever to win the Arnold Palmer, the Players, the Masters, and the Memorial in the same season. The other was Tiger Woods in 2001. He is the first player ever since the great Arnold Palmer to go into the U.S. Open with five or more PGA Tour victories. The aforementioned U.S. Open will take place next week at Pinehurst Country Club in North Carolina starting on Thursday where Scheffler will undoubtedly open as the favorite.
