Golf

2024 PGA Tour: Scottie Scheffler Continues Winning Streak at Travelers Championship

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Jun 26, 2024 / 8169 Views

Winning is a habit with Scottie Scheffler. But despite the five times he won this season before June 23, 2024, Scheffler has remained modest about being the best golfer in the world and PGA Tour’s FedExCup leader, and stayed steadfast that trophies do not define him. The Sunday of the 2024 Travelers Championship presented another shot at greatness, but while slugging it out in the playoff on the 18th green of TPC River Highlands, Scottie Scheffler was caught in a dilemma en-route the rare sixth win.

He was up against Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim, a man he shares his birthday with, and the two have gotten close since the baby-faced Korean joined the PGA Tour in 2022. Their special day was Friday, June 21, and the duo celebrated in advance over pizza in view of the upcoming competition. At 22 years and 2 days, Kim was aiming to becoming just the fifth youngest to notch a fourth win on Tour; and Scheffler, as he stood watching Kim miss out, was caught in two minds.

What went down at the Travelers Championship won by Scottie Scheffler

Torn by friendship

A part of him wanted Kim to make the putt, after all here was a kid and a dear friend trying to create a moment in history. Another voice within said Kim had to fail. He made bogey to be eliminated, and Scheffler’s par putt got him a lot more than the USD 3.6 million and 700 FedExCup points from the PGA Tour’s final Signature event of the season.

Paying tribute to Kim’s spirit and the champion he is by forcing the playoff with that clutch birdie putt at the end of regulation play to tie at 22-under 258, Scheffler will also reflect on what the Travelers Championship and the other crests have left him standing.

If Scheffler makes golf’s Hall of Fame soon, a lot of the thrust will be on the showing that started with the Arnold Palmer Invitational this March. The Players Championship, Masters, RBC Heritage, Memorial Tournament are the other vital cogs, and with the Travelers on Sunday, Scheffler is the first since Tiger Woods in 2009 to win six times or more in a season.

More pleasing is the stat he has come to share with a doyen. Arnold Palmer was in full cry when he won six times before the July of 1962, and now Scheffler has raised his hand.

As the only one to win multiple Signature events this season, to go with the triumph at the Masters and RBC Heritage, the resume reads six wins in the last 10 starts. This has had a cascading effect, as from six wins (4 in 2021-22 and 2 in 2022-23) Scheffler now has 12 titles. All at 28 years and 2 days.

No time to reflect

There is admission that the past few months have been frenetic on the golf course, and off it there are sleepless nights as Scheffler and wife Meredith raise their only child Bennett and learn the ropes of parenthood.

With some time to pause and ponder, Scheffler will take into account all that has gone into making the phenomenon he is. All in the space of under four months.

“Going week-to-week in the season, there’s not really much time to kind of sit around and reflect,” said Scheffler on the rigours of professional Golf. Four of Scheffler’s wins have come in batches of two, hence he couldn’t celebrate for too long as the next week came calling in the space of days. “In terms of playing through the season, I try not to look too far into the past or look too far into the future. I’ve been very fortunate to come away with some wins this year and it’s been fun. It is a lot of hard work paying off, and so very grateful to have some trophies to kind of show for it,” he said.

The major assignments that await Scheffler in the coming month or so are the Open Championship, the season’s final Major, and the Paris Olympics. Both are defining weeks, but Scheffler refused to be drawn into a discussion whether strong performances at Royal Troon (the Open venue) and Le Golf National, Paris, would be further validation to an already historic season.

It is the gratitude for the opportunity to compete in defining weeks is uppermost on his mind. While turning up in national colours at the Olympics is “something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time and hopefully we will be able to bring home medals for USA”, Scheffler believes he is best placed staying in the present.

A Major championship, the Olympics or a regular Tour event, the mantra stays unchanged. “I don’t set long-term goals. I’ve always been best just when I stay in the present. I have what I would call dreams and aspirations and those will probably never change, it is most important to have the right attitude and try and compete,” he said.

The Tour stats speak, and so do nuggets like his lead on the FedExCup ranking — a whopping 2511 points over Xander Schauffele. His earnings on the PGA Tour this season stand at a record USD 27,696,858.

Scheffler knows if he keeps turning up and comPeting on the weekends, everything else will fall in place, irrespective of what transpires around him. Like the bunch of people protesting climate change near the 18th green towards the close of regulation play. The activity of spraying powder did rattle the leader group of Kim, Akshay Bhatia and Scheffler briefly, but champions are known to shut out extraneous factors and finish the task on hand.

Taking heart

Kim lost out at the Travelers Championship but a lot of lessons lay in his best result of the season. The margin of error on the world’s biggest stage is minimal, and while admitting he “screwed up,” Kim was proud to force the playoff.

Holding the 54-hole lead, Kim would have become the third player to convert it in tournament History, but he knew who he was up against on Sunday.

“When you’re going against Scottie, who I know very, very well, I knew that I had to play really good golf and I felt like I did. It got tough out there…but I fought hard. But I’m taking some positive things going into the rest of the season,” said Kim.

The upcoming Rocket Mortgage Classic will be Kim’s ninth straight week at work, but there are no signs of fatigue. His first runner-up of 2024 has steeled the resolve to go for the W again. “A win would have definitely made next week a little easier, but I’m going to go right back at it and try to win, not try to win, just go out and really give myself a chance and together a good game plan,” said Kim, who like Scheffler will be carrying his nation’s hopes at the Olympics.

Birdie machine

Tom Hoge’s climb of nine spots on Sunday wasn’t built entirely on belief. Not at any point did he feel he could win at the Travelers Championship, but what he was certain of was that he needed to make a lot of birdies.

Surrounded by a bevy of stars, Hoge, whose lone official win came at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, may have lacked faith, but nailing nine birdies to the lone dropped shot underlined the essence of pro Golf.

The T3 is his best this season, and the 8-under 62 helps keeps faith that despite the slow progress at 35, he is getting a little better with each season.

The ‘59’ man

The vision of an upset win Cameron Young raised with the sub-60 round on Saturday did not come off the final day as he finished T9, but Young made the history books by becoming only the 13th player to shoot a sub-60 round in PGA Tour history.
Young marked his bogey-free card of 11-under 59 with two eagles and seven birdies, but for one still in search of his first win on Tour, it was about perspective.

“It’s fun to have your name on a list that short. But there’re some full tournaments I probably would rank above it in terms of overall achievement. One day doesn’t necessarily warrant like a crowning achievement of a career but it’s certainly my high of the month,” said Young.

(Main and featured image: Andy Lyons/ Getty Images North America/ Getty Images via AFP)