MEMPHIS — 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 St. Jude Championship was down to one.
Having 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.
Two holes later, Scheffler drilled a mid-iron shot to 10 feet for a birdie. He holed a 20-foot birdie on the next hole. A two-shot lead at the start quickly turned into a runaway. He closed with a 4-under-par 66 for an eight-shot victory, the largest margin in 68 years at TPC Southwind.