DUBLIN, Ohio — Scottie Scheffler is winning golf tournaments with such alarming regularity that describing his dominance is not a comfortable topic for the PGA Tour star.
It was fortunate that after he won the Memorial Tournament on Sunday for the second straight year, he at least had tourney host Jack Nicklaus at his side.
Nicklaus is a great authority when it comes to Scheffler because the Golden Bear sees so much of himself in the longtime No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking.
“Once I got myself into position to win, then you’ve got to be smart about how you finish it,” the 85-year-old Nicklaus, whose 18 major titles remain the standard, said after watching Scheffler turn a tussle into a four-shot victory. “And that’s the way he’s playing. He reminds me so much of the way I like to play.”
That’s how it transpired again at tough Muirfield Village, just the way it played out when Scheffler won the PGA Championship two weeks earlier.
He’s always there. He rarely makes a mistake. Blink and the lead is up to four shots.
Scheffler never lost the lead Sunday and never gave anyone much of a chance down the stretch in another relentless performance. The 28-year-old Texan closed with a 2-under-par 70 in conditions that felt like a dress rehearsal for the U.S. Open in two weeks at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh. He was the only player to break par all four days, finished 72 holes at 10-under 278 and posted a four-shot win over Ben Griffin.
Sepp Straka (70) finished another shot back in third.
Scheffler, who won for the ninth straight time with a 54-hole lead, joined Tiger Woods as the only repeat winners of the Memorial. Woods won three in a row (1999-2001) among his five victories at Muirfield Village.
Scheffler has won three times in his past four starts — the exception was last weekend’s tie for fourth at the Charles Schwab Challenge — and expanded his margin at No. 1 to levels not seen since 16-time major winner Woods in his peak years.
For Scheffler, it was his fifth victory in one of the PGA Tour’s $20 million signature events in the past two years.
With mud on the golf ball in the first fairway, then too much spin on short irons on the next few holes, Scheffler didn’t have a birdie putt until the fifth hole. He saved par seven times in the final round, including the final hole.
His three most recent victories have been by eight shots (CJ Cup Byron Nelson), five shots (PGA Championship) and four shots (Memorial).
“Scottie, he didn’t play — for him — spectacular golf,” Nicklaus said. “He played what he should do. He played good, solid, smart golf. Three 70s and a 68, that’s pretty good golf under the conditions that were out there. That’s what the best player in the world does.”
Scheffler only hit four of the first 10 greens in regulation Sunday. Coming off a bogey from the rough on the 10th hole — his only bogey in the last 40 holes — his lead was one shot over Griffin.
Scheffler had a birdie putt from just inside 15 feet on the par-5 11th. Griffin chipped to four feet for a birdie chance. Scheffler made, Griffin missed. Scheffler his the middle of the green on the next two holes. Griffin missed them and made bogey. The lead was four shots.
“Only one bogey around this place is pretty good,” Scheffler said. “I hit a lot of fairways. I definitely wasn’t in the rough very much. I think I hit it in the rough off of 10, but outside of that, I don’t think I was really in the rough at all. Around this place, that’s going to be key.”
He made it all sound so simple, even if it never feels that way.
“It’s always a hard week,” Scheffler said. “We battled really hard on the weekend. Overall it was a great week.”
Griffin tried to make it interesting at the end with a 12-foot eagle on the par-5 15th (after Scheffler narrowly missed his 15-foot eagle try) and a 25-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th (Scheffler’s birdie putt was one turn from falling).
That pulled him to within two shots with two to play. Scheffler, however, doesn’t make mistakes. Fairway and green on 17th, fairway and green on the 18th.
Griffin made a double bogey on the 17th.
“I’m definitely proving further more that I belong at the top in this game,” Griffin said. “I won twice the last five weeks, and those feelings are fun on Sunday nights when you’re signing a bunch of flags. I was prepared to do that today and ultimately just didn’t execute how I wanted to to get it done.”
Griffin made a four-foot par on the 18th for a 73 to finish alone in second, worth $2.2 million, more than what he earned when he won last week for his first solo victory on the PGA Tour. He teamed with Andrew Novak to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in late April.
Straka, who has managed to join Scheffler as one of the players with multiple PGA Tour wins this year — The American Express in January and the Truist Championship in May — knows what the top-ranked star is capable of but thought Muirfield Village’s tough setup offered reason to hope.
“You know Scottie’s probably going to play a good round of golf. The guy’s relentless. He loves competition, and he doesn’t like giving up shots,” Straka said. “But it’s one of those courses where it can always happen, so you’ve got to be prepared for it. I felt like I gave myself a lot of chances to kind of make a push.”
Rickie Fowler had his first top-10 finish of the year at just the right time.
He made par on the 18th to tie for seventh, earning a spot in the British Open. Fowler tied with Brandt Snedeker at 1-under 287, but he got the one British Open exemption available based on a higher world ranking: Fowler at No. 124, Snedeker at No. 430.
“That’s one I’ve wanted on the schedule,” said Fowler, who faces a 36-hole qualifier for the U.S. Open on Monday.
Baylor School graduate Harris English (71) finished at par and tied for 12th place. Chattanooga resident Stephan Jaeger, another former Red Raiders standout, closed with a 74 and tied for 39th at 7 over.
Stark’s first major
HARTFORD, Wis. — Maja Stark had lost her confidence heading into the U.S. Women’s Open.
Her decision to stop worrying about that sparked her to the biggest title in women’s golf.
The 25-year-old Swede closed with a par round of 72, stayed in front all day, and her 72-hole total of 7-under 281 at Erin Hills left her two strokes ahead of top-ranked Nelly Korda and Japan’s Rio Takeda.
“I think that I just stopped trying to control everything, and I just kind of let everything happen the way it happened,” Stark said. “During the practice days, I realized that if I just kind of hovered the club above the ground a little bit before I hit, I released some tension in my body. I think that just doing my processes well and knowing giving myself little things like that was the key this week, because I don’t really want to rely on my confidence for stuff.”
Stark became the sixth Swedish golfer to win a women’s major, and the first since Anna Nordqvist in the 2021 Women’s British Open. Stark’s only othe LPGA Tour win was at the ISPS Handa World Invitational in August 2022.
The former Oklahoma State player is the first Swede to win the U.S. Women’s Open since 2006, when Annika Sorenstam won the United States Golf Association event for the third time. Liselotte Neumann in 1988 was the only other Swedish winner.
“They texted me yesterday and just kind of said, ‘Bring it home,'” Stark said.
Stark’s steadiness made the difference as she held off a host of challengers that included Korda, the 26-year-old from Florida who is No. 1 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Korda closed with a 71, and Takeda had a 72 to tie for second. South Korea’s Hye-Jin Choi (68), China’s Ruoning Yin (70) and Japan’s Mao Saigo (73) shared fourth place at 4 under, with American player Hailee Cooper (70) and Japan’s Hinako Shibuno (74) another shot back.
Stark was paired in the final round with Julia Lopez Ramirez, who entered the day just one shot off the lead but fell out of contention early on her way to a 79 that was capped by a triple bogey. She tied for 19th.
Korda’s 15 LPGA Tour victories include a pair of majors — the 2021 Women’s PGA Championship and the 2024 Chevron Championship — but this is the closest she has come to winning the U.S. Women’s Open. Her previous best finish was a tie for eighth in 2022. She missed the cut last year, when she opened with an 80.
Stark made a birdie on No. 14 to regain her three-stroke advantage at 9 under. She maintained that lead despite bogeying the last two holes.
“I didn’t look at the leaderboards until I was on like 17,” Stark said. “I caught a glimpse of it. It was nice. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought that I would be because it felt like I have somewhat control of my game and I kind of know what’s going on.”
Stark credited caddie Jeff Brighton, a former standup comedian who helped keep her loose by telling jokes and making sure she didn’t dwell on what was at stake.
“We just kind of tried to talk about some stuff and not be too into my own putt,” she said.
Stark maintained her poise well enough to earn a $2.4 million prize in the most lucrative women’s golf tournament of the year. Now she just needs to figure out how to spend her winnings.
“Maybe move out of my studio apartment can be one thing,” Stark quipped.
Jimenez wins playoff
DES MOINES, Iowa — Miguel Angel Jimenez won the Principal Charity Classic for his third PGA Tour Champions victory of the year, with the 61-year-old Spaniard beating Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen and Australia’s Cameron Percy with a birdie on the first hole of a playoff at Wakonda Club.
The trio finished 54 holes of regulation play at 17-under 199.
Jimenez closed with a birdie on the 311-yard, par-4 18th for a 2-under 70, then made a four-footer for another birdie on the extra hole. Jimenez was at the top of the leaderboard at the end of each day; he had a one-shot lead over Percy after an opening 63, and his lead over Percy was two after a second-round 66 for the Spanish star.
Jimenez has 16 career victories on the 50-and-older tour, also winning the Trophy Hassan II in February in Morocco and the Hoag Classic in March in Newport Beach, California.
Kjeldsen shot a 63 in the final round, while Percy had a 67 as they set up the playoff, where both made par.
Kevin Sutherland missed the playoff by a stroke after a closing 68 that was capped by a birdie on the 18th.
Surges early Sunday
SALZBERG, Austria — Nicolai von Dellingshausen closed with a 5-under 65 for a two-shot victory at the DP World Tour’s Austrian Alpine Open, the 32-year-old German’s first win on the Europe-based circuit.
Von Dellingshausen began the final round one shot behind countryman Marcel Schneider and quickly seized control with three birdies and an eagle on the front nine. After another birdie to start the back nine, he closed with eight straight pars and finished the 72-hole tournament at 19-under 261.
Schneider (68) shared second place with Kristoffer Reitan, who was coming off a victory at the Soudal Open in Belgium. Reitan scorched the course at Gut Altentann Golf Club on Sunday for a 60, missing an eagle putt on the final hole in his bid for only the second 59 in a tournament exclusively sanctioned by the DP World Tour. England’s Oliver Fisher shot a 59 in the second round of the 2018 Portugal Masters.