Another Sunday in the park with Scottie

Scheffler is the enemy of PGA Tour drama, as he showed again at the Memorial

Scheffler (left) and Griffin

As soon as the leader board was consolidated late Saturday afternoon, the Sunday forecast in Columbus became simple: Fair with a 100 percent chance of Scottie Scheffler. Although it didn’t seem all that fair.

Scheffler parred the first 13 holes at the Memorial Tournament on Saturday, then came home with three birdies. That put him one stroke ahead of Ben Griffin, who had led the event by five just an hour before. It also concluded the suspenseful part of the program, because Scheffler protects his leads with barbed wire and bear spray. Scheffler, the defending champ, won the Memorial by four shots by shooting 2-under-par 70, and thus picked up his third victory within a month.

“I don’t think I played nearly as well as he plays,” said the architect of the Muirfield Village course and the proprietor of the tournament, which was celebrating its 50th anniversary. “He’s playing better than I played and more consistent.” That’s Jack Nicklaus, saying that.

Indeed, Scheffler has 16 tournament wins and took less time going from one to 16 than anybody except Nicklaus, Sam Snead and Tiger Woods. More important, Scheffler has now transformed nine consecutive Saturday leads into Sunday victories, which, of course, was Tiger’s performative logo.

But Woods enlivened the premises when he made his charges, decorating them with fist pumps, pin-rattling iron shots and soul-busting par putts. Scheffler doesn’t do it quite like that. He takes a pillowcase and suffocates the field. He barely bats an eye when he rolls in a 15-footer to stay on schedule, and he treats every shot exactly like the last one or the next one. Before each one, he goes through a rudimentary grip check, the way his teacher Randy Smith had suggested years ago. The only way to remove the lead from his grip is to shoot something historic, and it’s hard to do that when the storm clouds are deepening.

This month has summarized Scheffler perfectly. He began with an eight-shot romp in the Byron Nelson, leading after each round and shooting 31-under-par. Then came the PGA, in which Scheffler shot 11-under and romped by five. Even though that was a major, and Scheffler’s third major win, it wasn’t as difficult as Memorial, where Scheffler had one bogey in his final 40 holes. As is his custom, he led the field in strokes gained from tee to green and on approach shots.

There does not appear to be a course that does not fit Scheffler’s eye, although he hasn’t been much of a factor in Open Championships. There also does not appear to be a weekend scenario that he can’t write. With one round to go at the Olympics he was four strokes behind, so he decided to shoot 62 and win at 19-under.

Unlike Woods, Scheffler had a process to complete. In 2021-22 he had two 54-hole leads that he couldn’t hold. He was up by two at Colonial when his friend Sam Burns tied him, then beat him with a playoff birdie. At Houston, Scheffler carried a one-stroke lead into Sunday but only shot 1-under and lost to Jason Kokrak.

In between he was three shots ahead on Sunday morning at the Masters and actually suffered emotional incontinence before he got to the golf course, unable to fully confront the thought of a major win. But he smothered those demons soon enough and shot one-under to win by three, and it was only that close because he hockeyed his way to a double bogey on No. 18.

Since then, Sunday morning has come down hard on anyone in Scheffler’s path:

— 2023 Phoenix. He led by two and won by two, going 6-under with no bogeys on Sunday.

– 2023 Players. He led by two and won by five, going 3-under.

— 2024 Arnold Palmer. He was tied for the lead and won by 5, going 6-under with no bogeys.

— 2024 Players. He led by one and won by one, going 3-under with no bogeys.

– 2024 Masters. He led by one and won by four, going 4-under.

— 2024 Heritage. He led by one and won by three, going 3-under.

– 2024 Memorial. He led by four and won by one, going 2-over.

— 2025 Byron Nelson. He led by eight and won by eight, going 8-under.

– 2025 PGA. He led by three and won by five, shooting even par.

– 2025 Memorial. He led by one and won by four, shooting 2-under.

It was Griffin’s first experience in Scheffler’s vortex. He had been whipping up some winds of his own. In late April, he and Andrew Novak won the best-ball event in New Orleans, which was technically his first win, but at Colonial he took a trophy by himself. Before that, he was eighth at the PGA, which was his fourth Top Ten finish of the season.

Like most touring pros, Griffin used to be a wizard in short pants. He chipped in to win the North Carolina state high school title, at Pinehurst No. 6. Then he went to the state university, in his hometown of Chapel Hill, and broke Davis Love’s career scoring records. He knew how quickly it could go haywire, since his parents, who worked in real estate, had been forced to get a smaller home during the 2008 recession. During the pandemic Griffin was trying to compete in the Korn Ferry Tour, couldn’t make the money work, and finally closeted his clubs to work at a finance company. But he found some backers and got comfortable with his game again, and picked up club speed when he changed his fitness routine. Going to Memorial, he was fifth in the tour’s point standings. That’s a lot closer to 50th than it is to first, where Scheffler lives.

Next week the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont, near Pittsburgh. You don’t finish Open rounds at Oakmont, you get paroled. In 2007, Nick Dougherty, Jerry Kelly and Scott Verplank shot 10 over par and tied for seventh place, five strokes behind winner Angel Cabrera. It was comparatively merciful in 2016, when Dustin Johnson shot 4-under and won by three, but only four players broke par.

Nobody has a game that suits Oakmont, unless the game is motocross. But it particularly frowns upon those who can’t drive it long and straight, and who can’t make pars out of greenside rough. That leaves Scheffler and only a few others. The way he sees it, Oakmont has 18 tees and 18 holes. So it’s negotiable.