Weekly Recap: Scheffler Continues to Shine

The PGA Tour grouped the top three players in the world for THE PLAYERS Championship, adding a level of drama to a tournament where there seemingly couldn't be any more. The only thing that could've made it even better would've been if Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy were still battling it out late Sunday afternoon.

The best laid plans …

Rahm bowed out after 18 holes because of an illness and McIlroy was gone after 36 with a missed cut, leaving Scheffler to go it alone on the weekend. And, boy, did he ever.

Scheffler ran away from one of the strongest fields in golf and cruised to a five-shot victory on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass, winning for the second time in a month and -- for the time being, at least -- returning to No. 1 in the world rankings.

The big Texan shot four rounds in the 60s, seizing control with a Saturday 65, to finish 17-under-par, five strokes ahead of runner-up Tyrrell Hatton -- and the Englishman had to birdie his final five holes to get even that close. While 17-under is a big number for THE PLAYERS, it's important to note that only three other golfers finished in double digits despite largely benign conditions over the weekend.

In short, it was total domination.

"I got hot in the middle of the round and tried to put things away as quickly as I can," Scheffler told reporters at the course, referring to his five-birdie stretch bridging the front and back nines. "Gosh, it's fun."

Scheffler is halfway to recreating his torrid spring from a year ago, when he won four times in six starts, culminating with his first major title at the Masters and his ascension to the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time.

The 26-year-old surprisingly did not win again the rest of 2022. But he successfully defended in Phoenix last month, where it all began for him a year ago. And now if he repeats at the WGC-Match Play in two weeks and Augusta in four, he'll have another four-in-six surge.

That's asking a lot, of course. Even if he doesn't win both -- or either -- Scheffler is still on a pretty sweet roll just two weeks after the golf world thought Rahm was about to put a stranglehold on the No. 1 ranking. So, we should probably temper the Scheffler talk as well.

But it's amazing to see what Scheffler is doing. Going back eight tournaments since Mayakoba in the fall -- you know, when Mayakoba was still a PGA Tour locale -- Scheffler has finished no worse than 12th.  He's won twice, finished third, fourth, seventh, ninth, 11th and 12th. And that doesn't even include the runner-up at the Hero World Challenge.

We don't normally mention purses here -- they're large every week. But this one is so astronomical it cannot be avoided: Scheffler won $4.5 million for his PLAYERS title. He's won $10.4 million already this season.

He's also only the third golfer to hold the Masters and PLAYERS titles at the same time. The other two? Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

"I mean, quite a special group of people. We could add all our majors and PLAYERS together and I have two now and they have a lot more than that," Scheffler said, laughing.

"But any time you can get mentioned in the same breath as Tiger and Jack it's very special. I'm very grateful for that."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Tyrrell Hatton
Hatton became the first golfer to ever shoot 29 on the back nine on Sunday at Sawgrass. He birdied his final five holes for a solo runner-up, completing a brilliant two-week run – he was also fourth at Bay Hill (and sixth at Phoenix before that). Hatton is now up to 17th in the world and, if he keeps this up, gives Europe a pretty fair top four for the Ryder Cup along with Rahm, McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick. Fun fact: Hatton won more than $2.7 million for finishing second, and more than $2 million of it thanks to his 7-under back-nine surge.

Tom Hoge
Hoge shot 78 on Thursday and, before playing his second round, bought a plane ticket to return to Dallas later that day. But he shot 68 to make the cut, then 62 on Saturday and 70 on Sunday to end up in a tie for third. Hoge has been top-50 for a while now, but he has remained inconsistent, capable of weeks like this and, well, weeks like he almost had. He's up to a career-best No. 24 in the world.

Viktor Hovland
Hovland is an interesting case. He's ranked No. 9 in the world thanks to lots of top-10s – including Sunday's tie for third -- but not many wins. Yes, he's won the past two Hero World Challenges and they count in the rankings. But the Hero is the closest thing to a LIV tournament that the PGA Tour has. Hovland's last PGA Tour win came at Mayakoba in November 2021. He seems to be the master of coming close, and that's been enough to keep him in the top-10.

Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama tied for fifth. He's been slowed by a neck injury going back to last year. He had missed his two previous cuts before this week. It appears this injury will come and go, making it hard to count on Matsuyama on a weekly basis. But we saw how good he can be. He shot 67-68 on the weekend.

Min Woo Lee
What can you say about Lee's final-round implosion from the last grouping? A learning experience? Probably. Hopefully, because there was little else good about the 4-over 76 for the young Australian. A bogey on 18 landed him in a seven-way tie for sixth place – and that came after rallying with birdies on 16 and 17. The round actually started well, and Lee tied Scheffler for the lead. But a triple on No. 4 after finding the water changed everything. Lee could've really solidified himself in the top-50 but instead moved only to No. 45. And two more strokes would've gotten him Special Temporary Membership on Tour. That could come, as soon as two weeks at the Match Play.

Cam Davis
Davis had missed five cuts in a row and you had to wonder about his season. But he said early in the week that he had been battling an illness, then went out and tied for sixth. Davis appeared to a be player on the rise heading into 2023. There could be some value in his prices in the immediate future. Except it's uncertain when we might see him again. He didn't enter this week's Valspar and he hasn't qualified for the WGC-Match Play the week after – or for the Masters in four weeks. In between is the Valero Texas Open at the end of the month. We should see Davis there.

Justin Suh
The fourth member of the gamed Class of '19 coming out of college is far behind Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland (and Matthew Wolff) in career golf accomplishments. But Suh is making great strides. He tied for sixth and moved to a career-best 77th in the world. Suh is entered in the Valspar.

Justin Rose
Rose won at Pebble Beach a couple of months ago. A win is a win on the PGA Tour, but in that field, you wondered how much you could count on Rose in a top field. Well, now we know. Rose tied for sixth. And it would've been a top five if he hadn't gone in the water on 17 and double bogeying. Rose will be one of the bigger names at this week's Valspar.
 
David Lingmerth
The former Memorial champion has battled injuries that sidetracked his career. He appears healthy now. He just made his fourth straight cut, and this one was a tie for sixth. A few weeks back, Lingmerth tied for 10th at the Honda. Suddenly, he's ranked 127th in the world. He'll try to keep it going this week at the Valspar.
 
Rickie Fowler
The push to the Masters continues for Fowler. And it will include a stop at the WGC-Match Play tournament in two weeks. Fowler tied for 13th, moving to 59th in the world – within shouting distance of the top-50. But getting inside the top-64 ensures he will be in the Match Play. It's just an incredible bounce-back year-in-the-making for Fowler. After falling to about 175th in the world at his lowest point, he's now at his highest point since the end of 2020.

Adam Svensson
Svensson is already in the Masters after winning the RSM Classic in the fall. But he continues to climb higher in the rankings – which could get him into the U.S. Open in June. Svensson tied for 13th to move to a career-best 52nd in the world. He's got top-25s in three of his past four starts – all loaded designated events, including Bay Hill and Riviera.

Eric Cole
Many golf fans hadn't heard of Cole before his duel with Chris Kirk at the Honda a few weeks back. There was a good chance we'd never hear from him again after that runner-up. But Cole has other ideas. He shot 69-68 on the weekend and climbed 30 spots on the leaderboard on Sunday to just miss a top-25, tying for 27th. Cole will be in the Valspar field this week. He's now 154th in the world, up another 24 spots from last week.

Danny Willett
Willett tied for 27th, a week after tying for 34th – both times priced under $6500 on DraftKings. The Englishman has made five straight cuts.

Ben Griffin
Not only was the emerging Griffin near the lead early in the tournament, NBC thought enough of him to mic him up for an on-course interview on Saturday, joining some of the stars of the game who had been selected to chat while playing their third round at previous tournaments. Griffin ended up in 35th place, and that surely is disappointing for him. But he's made six of seven cuts in 2023 and stands at a career-high 75th in the world. If you've ever seen Griffin's TikTok posts, he really is engaging and interesting and that's why NBC picked him.

Taylor Montgomery
The favorite right now for PGA Tour Rookie of the Year found himself in fourth place when he arrived at the 15th hole on Sunday. Montgomery proceeded to go bogey-double-quad to free-fall into a tie for 44th place. He's 56th in the world and still with time to get into the top-50 and qualify for the Masters. But he was a slam dunk to get an Augusta invitation until imploding at the end.

MISSED CUTS

Jon Rahm pulled out with an illness before the second round, then playing partner Rory McIlroy missed the cut by a lot on Friday after never getting anything going. It sure looks as if Scheffler is the best player in the world right now, but two weeks ago it looked like Rahm. Expect multiple changes at the top for the rest of the year. Rahm and McIlroy will be just fine. … Thomas Detry missed his first real PGA Tour cut in a long time – since the 2021 Open Championship, in fact. He did WD from the Honda a few weeks ago with an injury, and that technically counts as a missed cut. But the point is, Detry has been a near-guarantee to reach the weekend. … Lucas Herbert was ranked 51st in the world entering the week, which of course is very good. The Aussie proceeded to shoot 82-85 – 23 over par. Herbert is an absolute mess when it comes to any sort of accuracy with his driver and irons, ranked 207th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach out of 210 golfers. He normally is a good putter with a good short game, but not this season. He's gone T50-T58-MC-MC in his four PGA Tour starts in 2023.