NAPA, Calif. — What was looked upon as a Ryder Cup training camp for the U.S. team turned into a typical golf week for Scottie Scheffler.
The 29-year-old Texan wanted to stay sharp ahead of the Sept. 26-28 matches at Bethpage Black on New York’s Long Island. The No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking for two-plus years looked every bit of that Sunday in the Procore Championship when he closed with a 5-under-par 67 for a one-shot victory over Ben Griffin.
It was Scheffler’s sixth PGA Tour victory of the year. He joined Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods as the only players since 1960 to win at least six times in consecutive seasons.
“This was a week in which I was playing a new golf course, a golf course that was pretty challenging to play for the first time,” Scheffler said. “Did a really good job of kind of staying in the tournament the first two days, and then the last two I played some really good golf in order to be in this position.”
He made up an eight-shot deficit on Griffin over the weekend with rounds of 64 and 67 , finishing 72 holes on the North Course at Silverado Resort at 19-under 269. The victory pushed his season winnings total to just more than $27.6 million.
The tournament had its strongest field and largest gallery since the tournament moved to Napa in 2014. And it got quite a show under a blazing sun when Scheffler and Griffin went down to the wire until Griffin came up one putt short.
Griffin, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this year who will soon make his Ryder Cup debut, had a 60-foot eagle putt for the win on the par-5 18th hole. He left that lag about five feet short, and the birdie putt to force a playoff caught the left lip. He closed with a 70.
“I felt like I just wasn’t quite as sharp from short range as I needed to be,” said Griffin, 29, who has finished as a runner-up to Scheffler twice this year. “But I’ll get to work this next week and hopefully make every single one of them at the Ryder Cup.”
Scheffler was one of the players who earlier in the year targeted the Procore Championship as a good spot for the Ryder Cup team to play so the Americans could avoid the mistake of two years ago, when all but two of the U.S. players had a month off before the matches against Europe at Marco Simone in Italy.
Four of the Ryder Cup players finished among the top 10, with U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun (66) finishing sixth and Cameron Young (67) tying for ninth.
“We floated the idea of doing a scouting trip to Bethpage or coming here and playing this event. We felt it would be a little bit more valuable to get all the guys together here this week to play tournament golf in order to stay in shape,” Scheffler said. “For me there’s just a difference between practicing and playing at home and getting under the gun in a tournament.”
Once the tournament started, though, Scheffler was all about winning.
It was his 19th career win on the PGA Tour, and now he heads to match play in the Ryder Cup against Europe, which has had the upper hand more often than not the past three decades and currently holds the trophy.
The trio of Baylor School graduates at the Procore Championship, including Ryder Cup team member Harris English, all made the cut, though none of them finished inside the top 25. Luke List closed with a 70 to finish at 7 under and tie for 30th, English (70) tied for 43rd at 5 under, and Keith Mitchell (71) shared 53rd at 3 under.
Lanto Griffin had as much pressure as anyone, coming into the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Fall schedule at No. 142 in the standings in the first year of only 100 players keeping full cards for the following season.
He delivered a 65 to finish alone in third, his best finish in nearly four years. That moved him up to No. 100 in the standings with two months and at least five tournaments to go.
“It’s huge,” Griffin said. “One of my goals this week was to give myself a chance. … I kind of wish Scottie wasn’t here, but I’m sure the fans enjoyed it.”
Auburn junior Jackson Koivun, the No. 1 amateur in the world who played in the final group, was two shots behind with seven holes to play when he took a soft bogey on the par-5 12th and then bogeyed the 13th when he went long of the green.
Koivun closed with a 71 and tied for fourth with Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo (66). It was Koivun’s fourth consecutive finish at 11th of better on the PGA Tour, and he gets in the Sanderson Farms Championship in three weeks — unless the 20-year-old has other plans at school.
Noren wins in playoff, stays hot
VIRGINIA WATER, England — Alex Noren turned a bad shot into a playoff victory, chipping from short of a stream to three feet for a birdie on the par-5 18th hole at Wentworth Club to defeat Adrien Saddier of France and win the BMW PGA Championship for the second time.
In rain-softened conditions, both players faced problems in the playoff at the DP World Tour’s flagship tournament. Saddier found a tough lie well left of the green. Noren hit his fairway metal heavy and feared it would go into the stream. It was so bad it came up short, leaving him a good lie in thick grass.
Saddier’s chip left him 15 feet from the fringe, and it never had a chance.
Noren, a 53-year-old Swede, has won twice in his past three starts on the DP World Tour — he won the British Masters three weeks ago — and heads to New York for the Ryder Cup, but only as a vice captain for Europe.
It’s his 12th career win on the European circuit and should move him into the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking, ahead of three other full-time DP World Tour players on the Ryder Cup team.
“The other guys have played better than me throughout the year,” Noren said. “I’ve put in great results now. But I think the guys on the team are going to be fantastic.”
North Ireland’s Rory McIlroy closed with a 65 for his best round of the week to tie for 20th. Spain’s Jon Rahm, winless this year in the LIV Golf League and the majors, shot a 66 to tie for 13th. Both will play for Europe.
“A really nice way to sign off the week, last competitive round going into the Ryder Cup,” McIlroy said. “So nice to finish on a high.”
The 11 players on Team Europe who played at Wentworth — Sepp Straka of Austria is home in America with a newborn — were headed for Bethpage Black for two days of practice ahead of the Sept. 26-28 matches.
Aaron Rai of England and American player Patrick Reed each closed with a 66 on Sunday and tied for third, two shots behind. Reed is an LIV player.
Noren and Saddier each closed with a 4-under 68, and it was a duel in the rain over the final hour as no one else could seriously challenge them. Both had birdie chances from medium range in regulation and finished 72 holes of regulation play at 19-under 269.
Noren was plugged into the top lip of a bunker on the par-3 14th when he blasted out to 10 feet and saved par with a putt that just caught the right corner of the cup. Saddier holed his eight-foot birdie putt to tie for the lead.
Saddier caught a break when a drive on the 15th appeared headed for trouble but wound up in the hood of a spectator’s sweatshirt, allowing for a drop. He and Noren matched pars on the next two holes.
The Frenchman had the edge on the par-5 17th when he hit a wedge shot to eight feet, but Noren holed out for birdie from just outside 20 feet and they went to the 18th tied, both coping with a steady rain that made it difficult to control shots.
“You’ve just got to fight,” Noren said. “Today felt like a fight. I think he outplayed me tee to green, but that’s how it goes.”
It stopped raining for the playoff, when Noren got his big break. Both were some 250 yards away from the hole, a shot that looked longer with a damp breeze and the soft conditions. Noren realized later going for the green might have been tougher than he thought.
“I thought I hit that one in the water,” he said with a smile. “But I had a great lie. I got fortunate with a good break, the chip sitting nicely.”
It caps an amazing turnaround for Noren, who had to step away for six months toward the end of last year with a hamstring injury that forced him out until early May. He was never in serious contention for the Ryder Cup with such a late start, but his victory can’t help but bring some extra energy to European captain Luke Donald’s group of assistants.
Hull capitalizes on late chance
MAINEVILLE, Ohio — Charley Hull took advantage of top-ranked Jeeno Thitikul’s final-hole putting meltdown to win the LPGA Tour’s Kroger Queen City Championship.
Thitikul — a stroke ahead after Hull bogeyed the par-4 17th — four-putted the par-5 18th from some 50 feet, missing a five-footer and a three-foot comebacker. Hull two-putted from about 30 feet, making a two-footer for the victory.
“I wasn’t really watching her putt for birdie because I thought she was going to hole it,” Hull said. “Then, yeah, I guess it’s not over until the fat lady sings, but I was shaking over that last putt because I just didn’t expect it.”
Fighting ankle and back trouble, Hull closed with a 4-under 68 to finish at 20-under 268 over 72 holes at TPC River’s Bend. The 29-year-old English player earned her third LPGA Tour win and first since 2022. She also has four victories on the Ladies European Tour.
“I tore the ligament completely in half on my foot in a car park the week after the British Open at a golf event,” Hull said. “Got told it could be up to nine weeks I could be out. I was like, ‘Wow!’ I turned it round in three weeks and played last week. Had an MRI on my back as well because I’ve picked up a box couple months before (the Evian Championship), and I think I tore something in my back because it never got better.”
Thitikul matched Hull with a 68. The 22-year-old from Thailand missed a chance to become the first player this season with multiple wins on the LPGA Tour. Thitikul won in May at Liberty National in New Jersey,
England’s Lottie Woad was third at 18 under after a 66. Japan’s Miyu Yamashita (69) was fourth at 17 under, and American star Nelly Korda (70), who is No. 2 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings, was among seven players tied for fifth at 15 under.
Goosen makes it four on senior circuit
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Retief Goosen won the Sanford International for the fourth victory of his PGA Tour Champions career, closing with a 3-under 67 for a two-stroke margin over Bo Van Pelt.
Goosen finished the 54-hole tournament at 13-under 197 at Minnehaha Country Club. The 56-year-old South African player and two-time U.S. Open champion (2001, 2004) won for the first time since the Galleri Classic in March 2024.
Van Pelt, an American who became eligible for the 50-and-olde tour earlier this year, finished with a 68.
South Africa’s Ernie Els (73) and Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke (68) tied for third at 8 under. Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez, who leads the season-long Charles Schwab Cup title race, was alone in fifth at 7 under after a 71.