Scottie Scheffler continues to cement his status as one of the world’s top golfers.
The Highland Park resident capped off another big victory against the toughest field in golf at The Players Championship on Sunday.
Scheffler made the challenging Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass look relatively tame as he cruised to a five-shot victory after carding a 3-under 69, taking home $4.5 million in the PGA Tour’s flagship event and the richest prize in golf.
Scheffler got off to a slow start going +1 after the first seven holes but then rattled off five straight birdies to put him far ahead of the stacked field. Even with a healthy lead, Scheffler continued to play aggressively.
After sinking a 20-foot par putt on 18, Scheffler had the largest margin of victory in The Players since 2006, when Stephen Ames won by six strokes. He became just the third player to win at TPC Sawgrass with all four rounds in the 60s.
Scheffler is the third University of Texas alum to win The Players — Tom Kite won in 1989, and Justin Leonard in 1998, according to the Golf Channel.
He is only the third player to hold The Players Championship and Masters titles simultaneously, joining all-time greats Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
The win was a family affair, as Scheffler’s 88-year-old grandmother, Mary, captured social media’s attention as she walked all 72 holes following her grandson during the tournament.
The Players Championship, commonly referred to as golf’s “fifth major,” is another marquee win to add to Scheffler’s quickly growing resume, where he has six wins in his last 27 starts on the PGA Tour.
Scheffler got his first win at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open in his 71st start, then quickly added wins at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, leading up to his first major championship win at The 2022 Masters Tournament last April.
His win Sunday is his second of the year after defending his title at the WM Phoenix Open last month.
“I got hot in the middle of the round and tried to put things away as quickly as I can,” Scheffler said, according to NBC 5 DFW. “Gosh, it’s fun.”
The win also put Scheffler back at No.1 on the Official World Golf Ranking ahead of Jon Rahm, who withdrew from the tournament citing a “stomach illness.”
“He’s just playing that good. I think the team around him and the way he’s wired, he’s got – he’s extremely grounded,” fellow Dallas resident Jordan Spieth said about Scheffler, per the PGA Tour.
“He’s in a good position to be able to continue to do this for a while.”
Scheffler’s next big test will be if he can defend his Masters title in April, where he is an 8-1 favorite, behind Jon Rahm at 7-1, according to Draft Kings.
