As if there was ever a doubt, Scottie Scheffler appears ready for the Ryder Cup.
The world No. 1 shot a final-round 5-under 67 at Silverado Resort and Spa’s North Course on Sunday to win the Procore Championship in Napa, California, by one stroke over his fellow U.S. Ryder Cup teammate Ben Griffin.
“I always focus as much as I can on my preparation going into tournaments, that’s what gives me confidence, and I feel like I’m as prepared as possible for the Ryder Cup, and I think we’re all excited for the tournament to get started,” he said. “We’ve got three days in New York to compete and have fun. We’re all looking forward to it.”
Scheffler, who signed for a 72-hole total of 19-under 269, trailed Griffin by eight strokes at the halfway point of the tournament but stormed back with a 10-birdie 64 on Saturday, his 31st round of 64 or lower on the PGA Tour in the last four seasons, or nine more than any other player during that span. Scheffler, who gained over 3 strokes on the greens in the final round, entered the final round trailing by two. He made birdies at Nos. 2 and 5 before draining a 26-foot birdie putt at the par-3 seventh and caught Griffin for the first time when he nearly holed his second shot from 82 yards at No. 10 for a kick-in birdie. Scheffler made bogey at 11 to fall out of the lead but bounced back with a birdie at 12 and never surrendered the lead once he got it back en route to his 19th career Tour title, tying the likes of fellow Texas Longhorns Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite on the all-time win list.
Griffin roared out of the gate with birdies on his first three holes and led by as many as three strokes but the birdies dried up. He bogeyed the fourth and lost the lead that he had held since early on Friday with another dropped shot at 14. Scheffler poured in another birdie at the par-5 15th to stretch his lead to two strokes before Griffin matched with a 15-footer of his own, his first birdie in 12 holes. He had a chance to win in regulation with an eagle at the par-5 18th or could have forced a sudden-death playoff with a birdie but took three putts from 60 feet, missing from 6 feet to tie things up and settled for a par.
“Just a bummer to finish that way. It happens. Not everyone’s a robot like Scottie, I guess,” said Griffin, who signed for 2-under 70. “Just wasn’t quite as sharp from short range as I needed to be, but I’ll get to work this next week and hopefully make every single one of them at the Ryder Cup.”
Scheffler won for the sixth time this season and joined Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer as the only golfers to win six or more times in back-to-back seasons since 1960.
Lanto Griffin failed to be low Griffin but closed with the low round of the day, a 65, to finish third, his best result on Tour since winning in Houston in 2019. Jackson Koivun, the 20-year-old No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, posted 1-under 71 and finished tied for fourth, his third straight top-10 finish on Tour, with Emiliano Grillo. J.J. Spaun, the reigning U.S. Open champion and another member of the 12-man U.S. Ryder Cup side, carded a bogey-free 66 to finish fifth.
Griffin, speaking for many in the field, said, “I kind of wish Scottie wasn’t here.”
But Scheffler shows up to a tournament with only one goal in mind and that is to win. He didn’t come to wine country just to shake any rust off his game.
“It would be unusual for me to have four or five weeks off before the Masters or the U.S. Open or something like that, so there’s no reason that I should be doing that going into the Ryder Cup,” Scheffler explained ahead of the tournament. “You can practice and do all you can at home, but there’s something different about playing competition, getting ready for a tournament and I think this will be good prep.”
After a slow start, especially with his putter on Thursday, which snapped his record of 21 consecutive sub-70 rounds, Scheffler wound up leading the field in birdies with 26, Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (14.508), Strokes Gained: Approach the Green (8.797) and Proximity (25’0”). Consider him officially Ryder Cup ready.
