Weekend: Scheffler Continues His Brilliance
Hero win following a layoff sets up the Masters champion for another huge year in 2025. Plus, Niemann wins, Cantlay blames media for pay talk, and the PGA Tour announces "Creator Council."
Scottie Scheffler last teed up in an official stroke-play event at the August Tour Championship. He was last seen going 3-2 in September’s Presidents Cup and returned this week looking even more complete after the epic seven-win season.
Scheffler tested out a new claw grip on shorter putts en route to a six-stroke Hero World Challenge victory. The unofficial win was capped off by a final round 63. And Scheffler’s 262 total at Albany bettered last year’s winning total by five strokes. He made just two bogeys for the week.
Since Scheffler debuted in the year-end Bahamas get-together, he has four top-two finishes in four starts. The 2024 Hero win comes over a weak field that cost the tournament some coveted ranking points. Either way, Scheffler’s 25-under-par total kept a surging Tom Kim at bay Sunday once third-round leader Justin Thomas faded and the South Korean was en route to playing the final three rounds in 21-under-par.
Scheffler’s 2024 tally included The Players, The Masters, a FedExCup, and an Olympic gold medal. He also put himself in the class of Woods with this:
“It's pretty surreal anytime you get — in the same room with Tiger, but it's definitely pretty surreal having him hand you a trophy at the end of the day,” Scheffler said. “We're proud to be supportive of Tiger and his foundation, love the work that they do and it's always a fun tournament for us to come and play in and support Tiger.”
Regarding the 2024 season, Scheffler delivered a modest assessment given how his latest runaway win tidily caps a season for the ages.
“I think it's been a great year, it's been a fun year,” he said. “I've been fortunate to get some wins out of some really good golf. This was another week where I played really solid and was able to see some nice results from that. Overall it was a pretty fun year.”
Scheffler finished 293-under-par in 21 starts:
The Hero’s weak field highlighted a new ranking formula working on a “points distribution curve,” meaning a paltry 117-point event would not be doling out points to those finishing 18th to 20th. The new formula came into play with the PGA Tour’s advent of “signature events” according to Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard. The 2024 Hero featured just three of the world's top 10 and had a lower field rating than the Asian Tour’s Saudi event.
Niemann Wins Another Late-Season Event
Joaquin Niemann took the Asian Tour’s SoftBank Investment Advisers event and with it, “The International Series” title. (It’s that LIV-Asian Tour collab to help get the defectors some cracks at OWGR points. Or something like that.)
Anyway, Niemann survived a dramatic playoff against fellow LIV golfers Cameron Smith and Caleb Surratt. The win moves Niemann from 124th to 74th in the world, likely putting him outside the year-end world top 50 ranking that could qualify the Chilean for his sixth Masters appearance. Since Niemann continues to circle the globe in hopes of accruing ranking points, including a T5 at the recent Australian Open, this latest year-end victory and his overall desire to qualify for major championships should set him up for invitations similar to those he received in 2024.
To win the Softbank at the radiant Riyadh Golf Club, Niemann got up and down on the second hole of the playoff following a final round 67.
American John Catlin won the Asian Tour order of merit and is likely to receive invitations to the PGA Championship and The Open via the OWGR “Federation Ranking.”
American Veerman Wins Nedbank
Johannes Veerman claimed the Nedbank Golf Challenge by a stroke for his second DP World Tour title. Long-hitting Aldrich Potgier started the day five clear of Veerman but the South African can turned in a closing bogey and 75 at Gary Player Country Club doomed his week.
Veerman, a 32-year-old American born in Orange County, began the week ranked 209th in the world and last won on the DP World Tour at the 2021 Czech Masters.
Joining Potgier in a tie for second were Matthew Jordan and Romain Langasque.
Cantlay Responds To Ryder Cup Pay Claims
After his Hero opening round, Hatgate’s own Patrick Cantlay became the latest American player queried about pay for future Ryder Cup play. Mirroring the responses of others asked last week, Cantlay did not deny the nearly month-old report. Instead, the PGA Tour Policy Board member blamed the media.
Q. There's been talk the last couple days about the Ryder Cup and American players possibly being paid. What do you know about that and what are your thoughts on it?
PATRICK CANTLAY: My thoughts on the Ryder Cup are really simple: I'm there to represent my country and I'm there to win points for my teammates and that's it.
Q. Does it frustrate you that because of what happened in Rome that people think you are the same or all Americans maybe want to be paid. Does that frustrate you?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I think that's a media narrative and I'm not going to fall into that.
A simple “the story is false” would have sufficed. But that would also mean the play-for-pay “media narrative” was false.