ATLANTA – Scottie Scheffler completed his weather-delayed third round at East Lake early Sunday like a man on a mission. Birdies at Nos. 13, 15, 17 and 18 gave him a six-stroke lead at the season finale.
“I definitely had good momentum,” Scheffler said. “Then we had a long delay, so it was kind of a good restart.”
When Scheffler returned to the course for his final round, however, things quickly turned. He bogeyed the first, fourth and sixth holes and after his drive on the 16th sailed into the left rough en route to his fourth bogey of the day, he found himself trailing for the first time all week at the Tour Championship.
Full-field scores from Tour Championship
There will be plenty of time for Scheffler – a four-time winner on the PGA Tour this season, including his victory at the Masters – to unpack what happened on Sunday, but he said the simplest reason was that it just wasn’t his day.
“Just little mental errors. After No. 6, I locked in pretty good and I just wasn’t swinging it well,” said Scheffler, who began the week at 10 under in the strokes-based scoring format and finished tied for second place at 20 under, a shot behind winner Rory McIlroy.
Although Scheffler lamented his missed opportunities on the greens, it was his ball-striking that let him down during the final round. He gave up 2 ½ strokes to the field in strokes gained: tee to green, his worst performance of the week, and hit just nine of 18 greens in regulation.
“Maybe if I could take a few shots back, I’d probably take back the drive on 16. That would be the one I’d like to have back,” he said. “But outside of that, I really fought hard today.”
Scheffler became the eighth player in Tour history to lose a six-stroke lead through 54 holes. The most recent player to do it was Dustin Johnson in the 2017 WGC-HSBC Champions.
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