Scottie Scheffler Wins THE PLAYERS as First Back-To-Back Champion
Scheffler defends his title with the lowest final round in tournament history.
Timm Hamm, March 17, 2024
The 50th Players Championship not only IS history, but it MADE history, too. Texan Scottie Scheffler marked his second consecutive Players title by one stroke over both Xander Schauffele and Wyndham Clark.
Scheffler's 20-under score was enough to edge the rest of the field, as the University of Texas grad is the first repeat winner of the Players Championship in its history, and set the largest single-round comeback by a champion ever. Scheffler trailed by five strokes entering Sunday.
The No. 1 player in the world shot a 64 to tie the lowest final-round score from a Players Championship winner (Davis Love III, Fred Couples, Jack Nicklaus). Prior to Scheffler's second win in a row, the best finish ever by a defending champion was T5 - accomplished most recently by Hal Sutton in 2001.
Scheffler is also the first player to win The Players Championship after winning the week before since Tiger Woods in 2001. He also becomes just the fourth player ever to win at Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass in the same season, joining Tom Kite (1989), Woods (2001, 2013) and Jason Day (2016).
Dealing with a neck injury for most of the week, Scheffler was able to put it all together on Sunday for the comeback win and stave off a furious comeback attempt by Schauffele and Brian Harman.
"I was hoping to be in this position," said Scheffler. "Yesterday -- I put up a good fight for four days. That's really all there was. Teddy [Scott] kept me in a good head space out there. We had a great finish yesterday, and then got off to a slow start today, but then the hole-out on 4 kind of propelled us a little bit, and hit a lot of good shots today, did a lot of good things this week."
Scheffler wins $4.5 million for his victory this week at the signature-labeled event.
Next up for the PGA Tour players is the Valspar Championship from Palm Harbor, Florida, just outside Tampa, where Taylor Moore will attempt to defend his two consecutive titles.
