Scottie signs off another 'signature' win
Scheffler dominates the PGA Tour's premiere events; Yang wins her major; Hatton and a couple of young Danes shine
Scottie Scheffler wins his sixth title … and it’s only June (James Gilbert/Getty Images)
The Scottie Scheffler Signature Series? Sounds right considering Scheffler turned the PGA Tour’s signature events into his own lucrative cash grab.
Fighting off a game Tom Kim — and a bizarre protester situation Sunday on the 72nd hole — Scheffler won his sixth tournament of the season on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff at the Travelers Championship. He’s won $27.7 million already in 2024 — $15.2 million of that in four signature-event wins.
Scheffler withstood the scary sight of police officers converging on the 18th green at TPC River Highlands as protestors disrupted play on the last hole of regulation, actually leaving powdery debris on the green and causing a bit of bedlam that required the pin to be relocated for the playoff.
Given Scheffler’s run-in with police the last month in Louisville, Kentucky — and this is not to make light of what occurred on Sunday — it had to be more than a bit unnerving for the otherwise unflappable Scheffler, who won four of the last five $20 million signature events, distractions be damned.
After Kim, who just turned 22, made an impressive birdie on that 18th green — draining a 10-foot putt after all of the mayhem subsided — he couldn’t stick with Scheffler on the same hole in the playoff, leaving his approach in a fried-egg bunker lie from which he failed to get up and down for par.
That left Scheffler with an easy two-putt for the victory, his fourth in the eight signature events — the Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, Memorial Tournament at Travelers. His other two wins? Only the Masters and the Players Championship.
“It was definitely a bit weird,’’ Scheffler said of the disturbance. “I saw one person out of the corner of my eye, and then I saw about five police officers sprinting around From my point of view, they got it taken care of pretty dang fast, and so we were very grateful for that. It seemed to go by really quickly to us.”
Akshay Bhatia was the third member of the group, which teed off earlier than normal to avert forecasted afternoon storms.
“I was scared for my life,’’ Bhatia said. “I didn’t even really know what was happening. All of a sudden, four, five people come out running on the green. I mean, it was kind of weird, but thankfully the cops were there and kept us safe, because that’s, you know, that’s just weird stuff.”