A year ago when Scottie Scheffler won the WM Phoenix Open for his first PGA Tour victory, it was like an overdue validation of his emerging place in the game.
It was the start of a career-changing run in which Scheffler won four times in short order, capping it with his victory in the Masters last April.
In successfully defending his title Sunday in Phoenix, which may have been a little louder and rowdier than usual with the Super Bowl in town at the same time, Scheffler regained the No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Ranking and raised the question of whether he is on the verge of another rip-roaring run.
Though Scheffler hadn’t won a tour event in more than 10 months, it’s not as though he went missing. He came into Phoenix having finished no lower than T11 in four starts in the final wrap-around season, and he came within a stroke of winning the FedEx Cup title late last summer.
Scheffler wasn’t perfect in the final round, but helped by seeing some early birdie putts fall, he picked up his fifth victory in the past 10 months.
“I’m just proud of how I fought,” Scheffler said after a closing 6-under 65 for a 19-under 265 total and two-stroke victory over Nick Taylor at TPC Scottsdale. “I just grinded it out.”
The best example may have come on the rambunctious par-3 16th hole, where Scheffler seemed on the verge of losing his two-stroke lead when he missed the green to the left, leaving a difficult pitch shot.
Taylor, who doggedly chased Scheffler through Sunday afternoon, made a similar mistake. Scheffler center-cut a 15-foot par putt, and when Taylor couldn’t match him, making a bogey, Scheffler’s lead was two with two holes to play. A birdie at the 17th – after Taylor’s own birdie putt lipped out – allowed Scheffler to cruise down the final fairway three ahead.
“That was a big putt (at No. 16),” Scheffler said. “It looked like it was going to be short for a while, but it kept going.”
The Phoenix event was the first of four designated events of $20 million-plus in a five-week stretch that continues this week at the Genesis Invitational, in which Tiger Woods will tee it up at Riviera Country Club.
The top of the Phoenix leaderboard was a testimony to the idea of what designated events can deliver: Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Sam Burns, Sungjae Im, Jordan Spieth, Tyrrell Hatton, Xander Schauffele and Rickie Fowler finished among the top 10.
Heading into the stretch of the season that he dominated a year ago, Scheffler is in a familiar spot even if he was in no hurry to move past his win in the desert. He also joined Hideki Matsuyama, Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, Lloyd Mangrum, Jimmy Demaret and Ben Hogan with consecutive victories in Phoenix.
“It feels pretty good,” Scheffler said.
Ron Green Jr.