Players Week Wrap: Scheffler Wins Again!
Players Week Wrap: Scheffler Wins Again!
The 50th championship sees a first-ever title defense. Strong bids by Clark, Schauffele and Harman highlight the power of 72-hole full field events at a storied venue.
A 144-player field and a 36-hole cut.
Warm weather with some swirling winds.
A tested, if excessively iron-injected TPC Sawgrass.
And everyone starting Sunday on the first tee to experience Pete Dye’s symphony as he composed it.
And the most amazing revelation from the 50th Players Championship: this four-day golf tournament thing still works well over a century later. As long as Mother Nature cooperates! Mitz. Vah.
Maybe best of all, Scottie Scheffler has forever erased “why has no one defended their title?” from Global Home and Golf Channel white boards. He is the gift that keeps on giving.
A lot went on this week and Monday figures to be no less lively at an undisclosed location in Ponte Vedra Beach. (I’m thinking it’s a family place with good food where they mind their business that’s poi-fect because it’s got one of those toilets with the chain ideal for storing a small gun.) Seems forever-future CEO Patrick Cantlay has masterminded a Whine and Dine with PIF reps to try and prevent the PGA Tour from going under. The meeting is so big that the Steamboat Express was even summoned to pick someone up in Charlotte. Presumably Board member Webb Simpson.
Now we know it’s going to be one banger of a get-together. Think of a sixth grader’s first cotillion combined with the most awkward funeral. Ever.
“Well, I’ve gotta hear out what they have to say, and I will always do my best to represent the entire membership whenever I am in a meeting in that capacity,” Cantlay said of working out a deal with Saudi’s reps who are apparently in town for this shin-dig. “If it weren't to happen, we would go on in a similar paradigm to how we're going on right now.”
A similar paradigm?
Here’s rooting for an open bar wherever the sides meet.
Random interruption thought: imagine spending hundreds of hours training to become a pilot to spend your Sunday evening picking up someone named Webb to possibly meet an ex-kidnapper named Yasir, all to sort out what the hell to do about Patrick Reed and the future of something called the Majesticks.
Now, back to on-course if sometimes-mind numbing displays of supreme confidence backed by brilliant shotmaking and decent-enough putting.
Scottie Scheffler posted a final round 64 moments ahead of the second and third round leaders Wyndham Clark and Xander Schauffele en route to winning the 50th Players. Along with co-runner-up Brian Harman the trio of bridesmaids all had their chances and battled—deliberately at 4:25 for twosomes Sunday—to the end. All three faced birdie putts at the once-difficult 18th to force a three-hole aggregate playoff. Though given the fading daylight, a playoff that might have interfered with Monday’s PIF-PGA Tour/grown-men-in-hoodies-meet-and-greet.
Then again, that’s a meeting only attended by those whose games look increasingly diminished by spending way too much time talking private equity and how to better dimensionalize the product. Scheffler could care less about it all as he marches to Augusta in search of a second green jacket while raking in millions.
With a second straight Players triumphant and this one even more impressive than 2023’s win, the Dallas resident retains the Gold Man trophy. One incidentally patterned on the tournament logo and supposedly some weird compilation of former champions. If he wins a third straight Players, they’ll redo Gold Man with sliding footwork and a walk-through finish. The pitches are already populating PGA Tour social media:
The 2024 Players victory continues a stunning run by Scheffler over the last two-plus years:
But there’s more.
Sunday’s final round 64 was his 45th bogey-free round since 2020 and continues Scheffler’s 2024 streak of 27 straight under-par rounds. (I don’t care how juiced the equipment is or how magnificent the conditions are or how many players bang behind the ball to improve their lie: that’s incredible!)
Scheffler’s 8-under-par closing 64 marked his eighth consecutive at TPC Sawgrass round of 69 or better. Pete AND Alice are spinning!
Scheffler’s worst score this year was a how-could-he-let-this-happen third round, two-under-par-71 at Kapalua.
His eighth career win ties Scheffler for most wins since the 2019-20 season with a former Tour member going by the initials J.R. who is currently planning Legion GC 13’s April invasion of inland Miami.
Scheffler’s win from five back easily surpasses his previous best come-from-behind win from two strokes back.
Take your pick of highlight shots out of this gem turned in by Scheffler. There was a 92-yard hole out at the fourth that will make all the local newscasts. And there was an equally impressive two-putt at the 17th that might not light the world on fire but it was from an easily-three-jackable distance.
But I’ll take Scheffler driving the 12th green for an easy birdie. It made clear his injured neck was no longer a bother and that he would be tough to pass.
“We were between driver and three wood there, and ended up going with a slight hold with a driver,” Scheffler told Golf Channel’s Live From about an hour after accepting the $4.5 million winner’s check. “And I hit this one right on my line and landed it right where we needed to. Just one of those shots you’re trying to get it up there somewhere around the green, and that one came down right on line and got the nice kick left.”
Statistically, you know the Scheffler deal by now. Ballstriking, yes. Putting, eh.
He hit 55/72 greens and 45 of 56 fairways to lead the field in Strokes Gained tee-to-green.
The putting was serviceable enough by ranking 37th in strokes gained with 280’9” of putts made.
Scheffler had just 26 and 25 putts for the weekend rounds and was 13 of 17 scrambling from the greens he missed.
SG: Tee-to-Green: 1st; SG: Off-the-Tee: 1st; Driving Accuracy: 1st; Greens hit: 3rd; SG: Approach: 7th.
Pursuers Clark and Schauffele still have plenty to be proud of in defeat.
Harman? He just takes too bloody long to be worth our time.
Schauffele’s recent move to Florida still has the San Diego native in the early stages of a coaching switch to Chris Como while keeping der loopy pater ensconced in California. The talent remains there for the Olympic gold medalist to win majors and who seems to be once again setting himself up for a big year (even if the range session after Saturday’s round seemed excessively technical for a guy who was two strokes off the 54-hole TPC Sawgrass scoring record).
Remember when all the instructors went home Wednesday night?
Anyway, Sunday’s inability to keep up with Scheffler also moved Schauffele’s career 54-hole lead/co-lead record to 2-for-7.
For Clark, it’s a second straight runner-up to Scheffler capped off by heartbreaking misses at 16 and 18. The first putt was an eagle try from 11 feet that took a wicked turn at the hole and away from the lake. The latter, a 17-footer to tie Scheffler, may have been going a bit too fast to force a playoff. Still, there was this image capture of a half-submerged ball posted on Elon’s Folly:
Clark ultimately lost this one with Saturday’s 17th hole chunked wedge after an indecisive wedge. It may have been caused by a little too much player-caddie over-analysis.
“I'm not throwing John [Ellis] under the bus by any means, but it was probably a perfect sand wedge,” Clark said after the round while throwing caddie John Ellis under the bus. At least, a wee bit.
“He thought if I nuked it, it could get on top. Kind of, as we were walking to put the ball down, he's like, Let's take a little off a full sand wedge. As I was over the ball I kind of got to the top and I was like, take a little off and then I just kind of deceled and chunked it. It wasn't really a lack of focus or anything. It just was honestly a poor swing.”
Sunday on 17 Clark hit his 136-yard tee shot a magnificent 4’5” to record just the fourth birdie of the day there.
For most of the week at rye-rough-on-steroids TPC Sawgrass, Clark seemed to have gotten the message about lieing following last week’s regrettable incident at Bay Hill. Then came a drop situation from lush rough behind the 10th green on Sunday. Folks on Elon’s Folly were understandably not thrilled with Clark doing a weird footsy mashdown atop his eventual drop location. It’s not a good look. At best.
So maybe the Golf Gods kept that 18th hole putt out of the cup? They have been known to work in mysterious ways.
Also…
Open Champion and eventual co-runner-up slowpoke Brian Harman set the tournament record for lowest middle 36-hole total of 129 (65-64).
Sam Ryder (T16/-10) recorded 27 birdies for the week, breaking the tournament record for most birdies or better in a single Players. The record was previously held by Fuzzy Zoeller, who made 26 in 1994.
Rory McIlroy (T19) tied Zoeller’s mark of 26 birdies.