Dallas’ Scottie Scheffler Ends Historic Season with FedEx Cup Championship Victory

The most important seven months of Scottie Scheffler’s 28-year life required no reassurances.

Dominance is dominance. Nothing that happened Sunday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, in the final round of the PGA Tour season, would change the fact that Scheffler is the undisputed best golfer in the world.

Still, Scheffler underscored his best PGA Tour season in at least 15 years, cashing in $25 million and winning the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup title by four strokes over Collin Morikawa.

A Dallas resident, Highland Park High student and University of Texas alum, Scheffler has seven wins this season, his best since Tiger Woods’ seven in 2007.

Not to belittle Woods’ accomplishments, but Scheffler’s Year also brought him a gold medal at the Paris Olympics in July and the birth of Scottie and Meredith’s first child, Bennett, on May 8.

It was the third consecutive year Scheffler entered the Tour Championship ranked No. 1. He had finished second the previous two years, so in that sense Scheffler had an extra incentive on Sunday beyond his $25 million bonus.

He held the world No. 1 ranking for 68 consecutive weeks and 102nd overall, but he knew a PGA Tour postseason victory would be a hole in his professional resume.

“It’s like the Cowboys had great regular seasons the last few years and left me heartbroken in the playoffs,” Scheffler told reporters on the eve of the Tour Championship. “But golf is a different sport.”

Professional golf is all about winning major championships, and Scheffler did just that this season, winning his second Masters title, as well as victories at the Players Championship, Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, Memorial, Travelers and Tour Championship.

How to put this season in perspective? There have been more dominant years, including North Texan Byron Nelson’s 18-win 1945 and the modern nine-win seasons of Woods (2000) and Vijay Singh (2004), but Scheffler’s season is by far the most lucrative in tour history.

His $29,228,357 in official money this season broke his own PGA Tour record of $21 million, which he set last season. And that doesn’t even include the $25 million he earned on Sunday, because that counts as a bonus, not season money.

“By any measure,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said during the trophy ceremony, “your year has been nothing short of stunning.”

As the FedEx Cup leader, Scheffler entered the Tour Championship with a two-point lead. At one point in the first round, he was tied for first place with Xander Schauffele, but he wasn’t far behind this week.

He had a five-shot lead on Sunday and extended it to seven. After bogeying holes Nos. 7 and 8, Scheffler’s lead suddenly dropped to two, but he birdied the next three holes and was no longer in danger.

So often this season, Scheffler has seemed impervious to pressure and adversity. That was most evident at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, where he was arrested before his second round and briefly jailed in what he called the Big Misunderstanding.

When he tried to enter the tournament grounds in his courtesy car, he failed to stop when a police officer ordered him to do so. Scheffler was unaware that the traffic jam around the Valhalla Club was caused by a pedestrian being hit and killed by a shuttle bus.

Released that same morning, just before the second shot with the .66 was fired, Scheffler remained in headlines for nearly two weeks until charges of assaulting a police officer with a vehicle and three misdemeanor charges were dropped.

As Scheffler noted Sunday in a post-round interview on NBC, the fan support has never wavered. If anything, they have embraced him even more, starting with the second round of the PGA Championship.

“After what happened in Louisville, I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen when I stepped on the first tee,” he said. “The reception I got when I stepped on the tee was something I’ll remember for a long time. The players were supportive the whole way through, too.”

Scheffler has certainly chosen the right time financially to become the best golfer in the world, as his tournament winnings are skyrocketing.

At last week’s BMW Championship, Scheffler quietly moved into third place in career PGA Tour earnings with $71,793,586, behind only Woods ($120,999,166) and Rory McIlroy ($90,989,166).

Let’s remember that he is only 28 years old and is theoretically entering the best period of his career, and already has 13 tournament victories under his belt.

Coming into this week, there was still some debate about whether Scheffler or Schauffele would win Player of the Year. After all, Schauffele won this year’s PGA Championship and the British Open.

But now consider that Scheffler’s seven wins this season are five more than anyone else on the tour – plus the gold medal in Paris, where he scored 64 points in the final round.

Scheffler cried that day as the national anthem played. There were no visible tears Sunday, but it was an emotional scene as Scheffler teed off on the 18th hole, walked away arm in arm with caddie Ted Scott, then raised his arms in triumph as the crowd cheered.

The television camera panned to the crowd and Scheffler’s parents, Scott and Diane, and then to Meredith, who carried Bennett to a grassy field and placed him in Scottie’s arms.

Scottie lifted Bennett into the air, a wonderful image befitting the Year of Scheffler.

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