When pressed on the matter, Theegala said, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep [if I didn’t call the penalty].”
NAPA, Calif. – As the longtime PGA professional at El Prado Golf Course in Chino Hills, California, Rick Hunter taught his students that if they cheated on the golf course, they wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
During the third round of the 2024 Tour Championship in Atlanta, Sahith Theegala, Hunter’s most famous student, reported a penalty on himself at the third hole, immediately calling over playing partner Xander Schauffele and notifying a rules official that he believed he may have touched a grain of sand in a bunker on his backswing, a violation of Rule 12.2b, testing the sand. Not even video could determine conclusively whether Theegala had grazed the sand but he was docked two strokes. He earned $7.5 million for finishing third but had he not been penalized he would have earned $10 million and tied Collin Morikawa for second place.
“Pretty sure I breached the rules, so I’m paying the price for it, and I feel good about it,” Theegala said after the fact.
His honesty cost him $2.5 million. When pressed on the matter, Theegala said, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep [if I didn’t call the penalty].”
“Sure enough, the exact phrase I always taught him, that’s what he came up with,” Hunter said. “But the way he handled the (infraction) was a reflection of the kind of person he is.”
To Theegala, he simply couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t spoken up on what he described as “90 percent sure” he touched the sand.
“I guess it was just the way my dad instilled values in me as a kid with golf specifically and my mom with the non-golf stuff,” he said. “It was just second nature. I felt I did something wrong, I just want to clear it up.”
As for the FedEx Cup Playoffs overall, Theegala described it as a rollercoaster ride. He was disappointed in his performance at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, where he finished T-46. Then he injured the hamate bone on his right hand on the Tuesday before the BMW Championship.
“It was just out of place and it was just pressing on a ligament and it was just painful,” he said. “We got it back in. It still hurt a lot, but it was back in.”
He sat out the pro-am but finished dead last in the 50-man field at a tournament for the first time in his career. On the eve of the Tour Championship, he reinjured a rib that had bothered him earlier that year. A team of personal trainers worked on his wrist and other injuries but he still didn’t feel great after his warmup before the opening round of the FedEx Cup finale. Hunter stepped in and dished out the tough love Theegala needed.
“I looked him right in the face,” Hunter recalled, “and I said, ‘Listen, we’re here to do something special.’ I said, ‘Don’t play golf swing, just go ahead and play the game.’ And he looked at me, and he says, ‘OK.’”
“It was just the kick I needed,” Theegala said. “It fired me up.”
Theegala ended up finishing third in the Tour Championship, making 29 birdies for the week, and he called it the best he’s played in a PGA Tour event. Hunter, for one, is confident it could be a turning point in his student’s career.
“Now he knows for sure he can whoop up on these top guys,” Hunter said of his performance in the elite 30-man field of the season’s top finishers. “He needed that.”
This week, Theegala returns to Silverado Resort’s North Course for the Procore Championship, site of his debut PGA Tour victory a year ago. In two weeks, Theegala takes the next step in his career, representing the United States in international competition for the first time at the Presidents Cup in Montreal.
“He was born to do stuff like this. This was part of his purpose in life,” Hunter said. “The boys on a mission, he wants to be one of the best and he’s got the gumption to do it. He’ll never have a so-called perfect swing but, boy, he’ll play with anybody.”
Asked to name the word that best summarized his season, Morikawa said, “Winless.”
ATLANTA — After Collin Morikawa fell four strokes short of catching Scottie Scheffler at the 2024 Tour Championship, he was asked to name the word that best summarized his season. “Winless,” he said with a faint smile.
Morikawa posted a final-round 5-under 66, reeling off six birdies after an opening-hole bogey to finish second and bank $12.5 million in bonus money. Morikawa started the tournament six strokes back in the staggered start and cut the deficit to two strokes with a birdie at No. 8 before Scheffler poured in three straight birdies and made an eagle at 14.
“I knew he wasn’t just going to come backward, and I still had to make a lot of birdies,” Morikawa said.
It was his seventh top-five finish of the season, which speaks to the number of times he was in contention, but failed to hoist a trophy. Morikawa, a six-time Tour winner with two majors to his credit, said he’s only going remember the victories. The 27-year-old former Cal Bear took some solace in winning the “ghost leaderboard,” shooting 22-under 262, the lowest score for 72 holes at East Lake Golf Club without the starting strokes. That was a stroke better than Sahith Theegala and two better than Scheffler on the gross leaderboard.
“It’s nice,” he said. “I knew that was kind of the goal for the week, right, to come out on top on this kind of fake leaderboard and see how things played out.”
Later, on Instagram, he joked, “Signed up for the gross division, forgot to sign up for the net.”
But there’s no trophy associated with it (though he will get the most Official World Golf Ranking points). To collect more hardware for his trophy cabinet he’s going to have to play better final rounds.
“That’s what it comes down to,” said Morikawa, who in addition to the Tour Championship played in the final pairing at both the Masters and PGA Championship as well as RBC Heritage and Memorial. “Those final rounds bit me in the butt.”
He’s made impressive strides to improve his biggest weaknesses. He ranked ninth in Strokes Gained: Around the Green this season, up from T-88 last year and 152nd the season before that. Likewise, his putting was a career-best T-62 this season, up from 114 last year and a dreadful 178th in SG: putting in 2021. Of course, his sterling iron game dipped to 41st in SG: Approach the Green this season from second, third and first the previous three seasons.
“Irons might have been close to my weakest part this year,” he admitted. “Irons I think are the biggest asset of a golf game that you can have. I think Scottie shows that. I’ve shown that in my first few years. Look, if I can dial it in and get back to who I was before and even better now, it’ll be hopefully a fun 2025.”
And one in which he returns to the winner’s circle again.
There was a lot of bonus money up for grabs at the season finale.
Scottie Scheffler had a season for the ages.
The 28-year-old won the 2024 Tour Championship on Sunday, shooting 4-under 67 in the final round to finish at 30 under for the week, four shots in front of Collin Morikawa. The win was his seventh on the PGA Tour in 2024, the first player with seven victories in a season since Tiger Woods in 2007.
With the win, Scheffler earned $25 million in bonus money, adding to the almost $30 million he earned in official money through the regular season. In fact, everyone who played this week in the Tour Championship had a solid payday.
“Golf is hard, and he’s figured out how to make it easy.”
ATLANTA — Randy Smith was speaking about his star pupil Scottie Scheffler when Scheffler’s mother, Diane, swooped in for a hug. But as he accepted her embrace, Smith answered the question about what he learned seeing Scheffler overcome the dreaded shank at the eighth hole in the final round of the 2024 Tour Championship and bounce back with three straight birdies and go on to win the title and the FedEx Cup for the first time with a winning score of 30 under.
“A lot,” Smith said, his eyes growing wide.
He still remembers when Scheffler was seven or eight years old and he would grow increasingly frustrated when he would do everything in his power correctly but the ball would take a funny bounce or would hit a spike mark and go off line. Scheffler couldn’t understand it. Smith said it took time, but he learned to control what he can control and appreciate that golf is not a game of perfect.
“Golf is hard,” Smith said, “and he’s figured out how to make it easy.”
Scottie Scheffler lines up his putt on the fifth green during the final round of the TOUR Championship. (John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
Indeed, Scheffler has, making five birdies and an eagle at East Lake Golf Club to shoot 4-under 67 on Sunday and beat Collin Morikawa by four strokes in the FedEx Cup finale to remove any doubt of who is the PGA Tour Player of the Year. Scheffler became the first player to win seven times in a single season – eight according to Scheffler, who counts the gold medal at the Paris Olympics – since Tiger Woods in 2007. In the last 40 years, Scheffler joins Woods, who did it four times, and Vijay Singh, who won nine times in 2004.
No less than Adam Scott, the 44-year-old veteran who experienced Tiger’s prime and finished T-4 this week, said Scheffler’s season was worthy of comparisons to some of Tiger’s best work.
“I think it is on par with those great years of Tiger’s. I think it’s very hard today for anyone to separate themselves as much as Scottie has. I don’t think we’ve seen that in a long time. I think it’s harder to do it today,” he said.
Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee argued Scheffler’s game from tee to green has been every bit as good as Tiger in his prime. “I never thought I’d be able to say that – Tiger Woods was a much better putter…what we (saw) this week is Tiger Woods-type putting,” he said of Scheffler, who ranked third in Strokes Gained: Putting this week.
Just a few weeks after Rory McIlroy suggested on national TV that Scheffler should consider using a mallet putter, he switched to a TaylorMade Spider in March, and the putts started to drop. When Scheffler, already the game’s most complete player, putts well, it’s not a fair fight.
“I made a lot of putts this year when I really needed to,” he said. “I think of the putt to win Memorial, I think of some of the putts I made over the week at the Players and the putts I made on the back nine Sunday at the Olympics. I made some putts this year when I really needed to, and that’s why I’m sitting here with a lot of wins instead of a few.”
Scheffler entered the Tour Championship at No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings for the third consecutive year and began at 10 under in the staggered start, two strokes clear of Xander Schauffele and as many as 10 ahead of the last man in the 30-man field. With rounds of 65-66-66, he enjoyed a five-stroke lead heading into the final round, and with Morikawa making bogey at the first and Scheffler sinking a birdie at No. 2, his lead grew to seven. But that seemingly commanding advantage began to shrink. Scheffler made three bogeys in a four-hole stretch beginning at the fifth and concluding with the world No. 1 shanking that ball from a greenside bunker at No. 8.
“You can see it in his body language right now,” NBC’s Jim “Bones” Mackay said. “He is shaken up.”
Very surprising were the words Morikawa used to describe the shot. He pounced, rolling in his birdie putt for a two-stroke swing to cut the deficit to two. All the momentum had shifted. But one of Scheffler’s super powers is his ability to only look forward.
“He went back to work,” Smith said.
“It almost brought his focus back in for a half second, and that’s something you can’t teach. You just either have it or you don’t,” Morikawa said.
It looked as if Scheffler, who blew a six-stroke 54-hole lead in the 2022 Tour Championship to McIlroy, was reeling. A pep talk from caddie Ted Scott helped settle his nerves. Morikawa wasn’t surprised what happened next: “He played Scottie golf.”
Scheffler drilled a 4-iron at the par-3 ninth to 3 feet and made birdie. He birdied the next two holes to stretch the lead to five. That’s what the greats do. Just like he did down the road at Augusta National Golf Club in April, he sucked all the drama out of the closing holes.
Scottie Scheffler celebrates with wife Meredith and their son Bennett after winning the 2024 Tour Championship. (John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports)
In a year in which he welcomed the birth of his first child, a son Bennett, and stretched in a Louisville jail cell before the second round of the PGA Championship at Valhalla, Scheffler collected his 13th Tour title, tying him with a group that includes Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and David Duval. That included another major championship, his second Masters title, and he also won the Players, becoming the first player to win the Tour’s flagship event in back-to-back years. He also claimed four signature events: the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Travelers and the Memorial.
“He’s the guy to beat every single week,” Justin Thomas said. “I don’t think people understand how hard that is to do, when you’re expected to win, when you’re the favorite to win, when every single thing you’re doing is being looked at, good and bad, on the golf course, and how hard it is to get in your own little zone and own little world and truly just quiet the noise. It’s something that is just as much of a skill as being able to hit a driver in the fairway or an iron on line. He’s clearly figured that out very well.”
Scott has tried to figure out Scheffler’s secret sauce, which included ranking first in 40 different statistical categories measured by the Tour – among them first in greens in regulation (73 percent) and putting average (1.69). No player had led both categories in a single season since 1980. (In 2000, Woods was second in putting average.)
“I’m observing all the time everything he does. I switched to his golf ball this year. I did a bunch of stuff just to see what’s going on. But I didn’t find it,” Scott said.
Aaron Rai, who made it to East Lake for the first time this season, has been keeping close tabs on Scheffler’s relentless play and run of dominance and offered a different take on what makes Scheffler special.
“His biggest strength is his outlook and his perspective on life,” Rai said. “To be able to maintain that level of golf under the pressure of being world No. 1 and the attention that surrounds him every week and to be able to play his best golf at No. 1 shows a different dimension to his game.”
Schauffele, who with two majors enjoyed a breakthrough season and finished T-4 at the Tour Championship, has witnessed Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, McIlroy and Jon Rahm take their turn at No. 1, but what Scheffler has done stands alone.
“I think by the definition of dominance, I think that’s literally where he’s sitting,” Schauffele said. “They were kind of punching back and forth between 1, 2 and 3. Scottie has just been at the tip-top of the mountain for, what, two full years now it seems.”
Schauffele, Scott, Morikawa and the best players in men’s golf will get another shot next season to knock Scheffler from his perch, but none of his success surprises CBS analyst Colt Knost, who watched Scheffler blossom into the best in the world from a young age.
“This is what he does,” Knost said. “He’s been a winner his whole life, and I don’t see him slowing down any time soon.”
Even the world No. 1 can have a case of the shanks.
ATLANTA – Even the world No. 1 can have a case of the shanks.
Scottie Scheffler, who is trying to close out his first FedEx Cup title, picked a bad time to hit the dreaded shrank. At the eighth hole at East Lake Golf Club on Sunday during the final round of the Tour Championship, Scheffler shanked a bunker shot, his second shot at the drivable par 4.
“Shanked it!” NBC’s Kevin Kisner said.
“This Tour Championship just got game on,” NBC’s Dan Hicks said.
Dissecting what went wrong, Kisner said, “Right off the hosel there, running that club too far out to the right.”
“That disturbing hosel sound out of the sand,” Hick said.
“You can see it in his body language right now, Dan,” Jim “Bones” Mackay said. “He is shaken up.”
Scheffler made bogey, the only one made at the hole all day, and Collin Morikawa, his closest competitor, made birdie and clenched his fist for a two-stroke swing. What was once a seven-stroke lead for Scheffler had been trimmed to two.
“I’ve never seen him shank a bunker shot in all my days,” Kisner said. “The only reason I was thinking maybe he shanked it is because maybe he was trying to hit a fat shot and not catch it clean like you normally do and wanted it to release down that hill, so, a little indecision on where he wanted to strike the sand.”
Added Hicks: “Things just got incredibly more interesting.”
Indeed, they did.
“I got off to a good start and then I had obviously the two holes there on 7 and 8, and Teddy did a good job of keeping me focused. Was able to hit a nice shot in there into 9 and really change the momentum,” Scheffler said after his round.
Scheffler being Scheffler he bounced back, striping a 4-iron to 3 feet for an easy birdie at nine to restore some order in the universe. But you never know when the shanks will strike — even to world No. 1.
Everything you need to know for the final round of the Tour Championship.
This one might be over, folks. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler entered the 2024 Tour Championship with a two-shot lead over Xander Schauffele, but it’s now ballooned to five shots with 18 holes left to play at East Lake Golf Club.
Collin Morikawa is Scheffler’s closest chaser at 21 under, with Sahith Theegala alone in third at 17 under, nine back.
The newly-renovated East Lake Golf Club is a par-71 track measuring 7,490 yards.
The winner of the Tour Championship banks $25 million in bonus money. From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s what you need to know for the final round of the 2024 Tour Championship. All times listed are ET.
Theegala “will have the opportunity to review the penalty with a rules official following his round.”
Sahith Theegala used rounds of 67-66 during the first two rounds of the 2024 Tour Championship in Atlanta to play himself into contention heading into Moving Day.
After a lengthy birdie make on the par-3 second Saturday, a unique rules situation dropped Theegala from 13 under to 11 under.
Theegala self-reported a two-shot penalty after he grazed the sand in a fairway bunker on the third hole. He made par, but it turned into a six after speaking with an official.
According to the PGA Tour, Theegala “will have the opportunity to review the penalty with a rules official following his round.”
Everything you need to know for the third round of the Tour Championship.
The first 36 holes of the 2024 Tour Championship in Atlanta are in the books and the man who entered with a two-shot lead now has a four-shot advantage heading into Moving Day.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has posted rounds of 65-66 and sits at 21 under, four clear of Collin Morikawa at 17 under, who has shot rounds of 66-63.
Xander Schauffele is five back of Scheffler at 16 under, while Sahith Theegala, Wyndham Clark and Adam Scott are nine back at 12 under. This sure looks like a three-man race.
The newly-renovated East Lake Golf Club is a par-71 track measuring 7,490 yards.
The winner of the Tour Championship banks $25 million in bonus money. From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s what you need to know for the third round of the 2024 Tour Championship. All times listed are ET.
Scottie Scheffler is a man on a mission this week in Atlanta, building a seven-shot lead entering Friday’s second round of the 2024 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club — he began the week with a two-shot advantage over Xander Schauffele.
So when he hits a less-than-average shot, you have to take advantage.
During his round, Scheffler’s best friend Sam Burns stopped to talk with Smylie Kaufman and Kevin Kisner at their broadcast booth during Scheffler’s approach from a fairway bunker on No. 13.
After Scheffler bladed his ball over the green, Burns couldn’t help himself.
“Oh, one-handed it. This guy’s terrible,” he said.
It drew a big laugh from Kaufman, Kisner and Burns’ playing partner Wyndham Clark.
The second round was suspended due to inclement weather as Burns was waiting to tee off No. 18. Scheffler, who held a four-shot lead at the horn, was in the 16th fairway.
ATLANTA — It’s a bit toasty at the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake Golf Club.
Sweaters are nowhere to be found at the Tour Championship and even the quarter zips and hoodies are a tough sell in the 90-90-90 weather here —90 degrees, 90 percent humidity and 90 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms. They don’t call it Hot-lanta for nothing.
But if you’re looking for a T-shirt, a polo or simply a ball cap to provide a little sun protection, you’ve come to the right place because the merchandise shop is stocked with a veritable United Nations of brands —local favorite Bobby Jones, FootJoy, Adidas, Nike, Puma, Peter Millar, Greyson, Travis Mathew and Johnnie-O among the usual suspects. But also some newbie and upcoming brands such as Barstool Sports, Trap Golf, Levelwear, Rhoback, Bogey Boys, TASC, Eastside Golf and LuluLemon for the ladies. There are also caps in numerous styles from Ahead, Imperial and Pukka.
Brands had their most fun with their T-shirts, which I always like to see. This week, the merchandise shop is a popular spot, not just to shop but to cool off in the A/C. Hot-lanta is as hot as ever — as is tournament leader Scottie Scheffler.
Here are some of our favorite items in the merchandise shop at the 2024 Tour Championship.
