By ASSOCIATED PRESS
HILTON HEAD ISLAND (AP) — A Masters green jacket wasn’t enough for Scottie Scheffler.
Scheffler was running on emotional fumes fresh off his four-shot victory at Augusta National, but full of purpose that more than made up for his lack of preparation for the RBC Heritage. The result not only was similar, it has come to be expected.
He rarely missed a shot. He gave little hope to those chasing him. And he walked away from Harbour Town on Monday morning, April 22, with another victory that extended a dominance not seen since the peak years of Tiger Woods.
“I didn’t show up here just to have some sort of ceremony and have people tell me congratulations. I came here with a purpose,” Scheffler said after polishing off a 3-under 68 for a three-shot victory.
Victory was inevitable — Scheffler had a five-shot lead with three holes to play when the final round, delayed 2 1/2 hours because of storms Sunday afternoon, was suspended by darkness. It’s starting to feel that way whenever he plays.
Scheffler now has won four of his last five starts, the exception a runner-up finish in the Houston Open when he misread a 5-foot birdie putt that would have forced a playoff.
He considered this one of the tougher wins because it followed the Masters.
“Coming off the high last week to going into here, not really with a ton of energy, not really with a ton of prep work,” Scheffler said. “I think it’s underrated how difficult it is to do the stuff that Tiger was doing, and win like every single week. It takes a lot out of you emotionally and physically, especially major championships.”
Turns out he had plenty left in the tank.
Scheffler now has 40 consecutive rounds at par or better, a streak that began at East Lake in the Tour Championship last August. His position at No. 1 in the world is so great that he became the first player since Woods to crack the 15-point average mark.
“It’s very impressive,” Patrick Cantlay said. “He’s played great for a while now — a number of years — and it seems like he is playing the best golf of his life right now.”
The only competition Monday morning was for second place.
The storms brought cold weather and a strong wind. Scheffler missed the 18th green to the right, chipped safely to 18 feet and two-putted for bogey. That ended his streak of 68 consecutive holes with no worse than a par.
“I hit driver, 3-wood into there,” Scheffler said. “So I’m going to count that as a par for myself.”
Sahith Theegala birdied the 16th hole, saved par from a bunker on the par-3 17th and closed with a par for a 68 to finish alone in second, a difference of $666,667 than if he had finished in a three-way tie for second.
“Even though I finished second, I felt like I was never really in it to win there. Scottie was just so far ahead,” Theegala said.
Cantlay (68) and U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, who finished his 65 on Sunday before the storms, tied for third.
Scheffler finished at 19-under 265 and earned $3.2 million. That brings his season total to nearly $18.7 million in just 10 tournaments.
The good news for the rest of the PGA Tour: Scheffler won’t show up again until the PGA Championship the third week in May. He headed back home to Dallas, where his wife his expecting their first child sometime next week.
Scheffler was staked to a one-shot lead starting the final round and chipped in for eagle on the second hole. Before long, he had a four-shot lead and never showed any signs of coming back.
“I got off to a good start yesterday and kind of just kept it going from there,” he said.
The week wasn’t the smoothest start for Scheffler, who was six shots behind after an opening round that included a shank from the bunker on the third hole for a double bogey. He didn’t drop another shot the rest of the week until it no longer mattered.
About the only thing that went wrong for Scheffler was the celebration. His caddie, Ted Scott, went for an elevated chest pump and Scheffler just laughed at him without moving.
About 400 spectators waiting along the 18th fairway were allowed to fill a corner of the grandstands as Scheffler approached. He turned and waved his cap toward them after tapping in his final stroke of another masterpiece.
Such is Scheffler’s dominance that his last seven victories have come against fields that had at least eight of the top 10 players in the world.
The last player to run off a stretch like this — four wins and a runner-up — was Woods at the end of 2007. Woods then won his first three PGA Tour starts (and one on the European Tour) to start 2008.
Scheffler now has 10 titles on the PGA Tour in a span of 51 tournaments dating to his first victory in the 2022 Phoenix Open.
“It does not get boring,” Scheffler said. “I think hitting a really well-struck golf shot close to the pin is like an addicting feeling.”
