For the first time since 2023, Scottie Scheffler has gone through an entire men’s major championship season without hoisting a trophy.
The World No. 1 put together a final-round 3-under-par 67 on Sunday at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in one last attempt to climb the leaderboard, but it wasn’t enough. Scheffler wrapped up the week at 7 under par, sharing fourth place with Englishman Tommy Fleetwood at the Open Championship.
Cameron Young had already set the clubhouse target at 9 under, but New Zealand’s Ryan Fox came charging late to claim the Claret Jug, finishing at 10-under 270 to win the championship.
Scheffler reflected on his strategy heading into Sunday’s round. “Going into today, I had some experience in comebacks in stuff like this,” he said, “and I told myself if I could go out and shoot 4 under on the front nine, I’d be right in it because the leaders wouldn’t have barely teed off yet, and that would have put me at 8, and (54-hole leader Sam Burns) would have been at 10.”
Despite the outcome, the world’s top-ranked player said he had no regrets about how he approached the day. “I definitely don’t regret any of the decisions that I made, either off the tee or going into greens today. I did a good job of staying aggressive and was committed to what I’m doing, and I was very proud of kind of how I played this week when I felt like things weren’t going necessarily my way. It was mentally, for me, I think, a really, really good week.”
Scheffler reached the turn 3 under for the round and 7 under overall. A birdie putt of 14 and a half feet at the par-3 12th hole moved him to 8 under for the first time, putting him briefly in contention.
However, the wheels came off at the 13th hole. Scheffler’s tee shot found the rough on the right side, and his second shot barely moved, staying on the hillside just in front of him. The resulting bogey stung, and a weak chip at the par-3 15th led to another dropped shot.
Scheffler — who struggled with his putter throughout the week — recovered with an 11-foot birdie at the 16th before a dramatic sequence unfolded at the par-5 17th.
After another missed fairway, Scheffler attempted a blind 3-wood from behind a large mound. The ball had enough distance to reach the green but veered sharply left, coming to rest near some tournament infrastructure.
As volunteers began hunting for the ball, Scheffler waved them off. A rules official traveling with his group granted him relief from the obstruction.
“The rules official said it landed just barely left of the grandstand thing,” Scheffler explained. “I don’t know what you call that, like a sponsor area or something. And (caddie Ted Scott) had a bead right on where it was coming down.”
Scheffler said he weighed his options carefully. “We tried to figure it out. I said, ‘If I find it, does that help me; can I drop it?’ — since that would be about 50 yards closer to the hole. He said, ‘Yes, you can then use that spot, but you might have to go to the other side of the TIO (temporary immovable obstruction),’ which I didn’t know exactly where that would be, and that’s not a great angle coming across there. So decided to stop the search and go back and drop it doing point-of-entry TIO relief.”
The calculated decision worked in his favor. Scheffler dropped the ball short of the grandstand, giving himself a clear view of the pin. He then stuck his third shot 11 feet away and drained the birdie putt to get back to 8 under — an unlikely outcome from a chaotic situation.
But the 18th hole proved to be his undoing. Needing a birdie to match Young at the top of the leaderboard, Scheffler again missed the fairway. His approach settled next to a bunker short of the green, and he failed to get up and down for par, sliding back to 7 under to close out his week.
Scheffler, 30, has not won a tournament of any kind since The American Express back in January — his 20th career PGA Tour victory. He also arrived in England coming off his first missed cut in four years at the Scottish Open the previous week. Still, he downplayed any concern about the recent dry spell.
“Just those little kind of bounces,” he said. “My ball on 14 I think is in the fairway, I come up there, it’s in the pot bunker. Little stuff like that over the course of the week tends to add up. I competed really well this week. I did a good job of staying patient and hit the ball really nice over the course of four days. Maybe yesterday was the only day I didn’t strike it as well as I would have liked to.”
