Scottie Scheffler has dominated the PGA Tour’s signature events this season and he’s got one more to add to the burgeoning amount of FedEx Cup points and earnings the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer has racked up.
Scheffler leads the field for this week’s Travelers Championship, the eighth and final signature event of the 2024 season. He’s coming off his worst finish of the season with a tie for 41st at Pinehurst, Scheffler’s first finish outside the top 20 this season. It also snapped a streak of 11 top-10 finishes, which included his five victories.
Scheffler’s biggest triumphs this season have been The Masters and The Players Championship. But he’s also taken the Tour’s new Signature Series by storm:
Scheffler has finished among the top 10 in all six of his signature event starts this season (he missed only the Wells Fargo Championship for the birth of his son) and has been among the top five in four of them. He won three, The Memorial, the RBC Heritage and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Scheffler has piled up more than half of his FedEx Cup points (54 percent of his total of 5,068) and more than half of his earnings (55 percent of his $24,096,858) in the signature events. He’s got huge leads in both categories.
He has shot over-par in only one of 23 rounds, has a scoring average of 68.0 and is a cumulative 88 under par.
Scottie Scheffler reacts with his caddie after winning the 2024 Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club. (Photo: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
Scheffler has never won The Travelers but he’s posted good finishes in his last two starts, tying for fourth last year and for 13th in 2022.
At Pinehurst, Scheffler had trouble with the numerous factors in posting rounds of 71, 74, 71 and 72.
“The game of golf is a mental torture chamber at times, especially the U.S. Open,” the reigning Masters champion on Saturday after the third round. “Another frustrating day. Today was a day where I thought I played a lot better than my score.”
Surprisingly, Scheffler’s tee game was unusually erratic. He hit just 25 of his first 42 fairways, including only six on Thursday.
Asked if he might alter his approach to preparing for tough tests such as the U.S. Open, Scheffler suggested he could tweak his schedule in the future.
“I think going into the major championships, especially the ones we know are going to be really challenging, it may be in my best interest not to play the week before,” he said. “That’s stuff for me to figure out later in the year. That’s some of my thoughts sitting around watching the cut.”