Scottie Scheffler’s season of excellence continued Sunday at the RBC Heritage.
He’ll just have to wait until Monday for the win. Play was called due to darkness at the event at Harbour Town Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina with Scheffler five strokes ahead and three holes to play. There was a 2 ½ hour weather delay from 4:28 p.m. until 7 that forced the PGA Tour into a Monday finish.
Scheffler is seeking to become the first since Bernard Langher in 1985 to follow up a Masters win with a win the following week (Langher also won at Harbour Town). Gary Player in 1978 and Jimmy Demaret in 1950 also accomplished the feat. An RBC Heritage would win also be Scheffler’s fourth in five starts, including the Masters, Players Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational. In the Houston Open, he finished in a tie for second, and missed a putt to force a playoff.
Scheffler is at 20-under this week, with four players at 15-under-par. Sahith Theegala also has three holes to play, with J.T. Poston in the 18th fairway and Patrick Cantlay on the fringe of No. 18 green. Wyndham Clark has finished a fourth-round 65.
Scheffler punctuated Sunday with a head-shaking 15th hole — Scheffler had an exceedingly rare mishit with his second shot, going just left into the water. As he was taking the drop CBS attempted to foreshadow what was coming by flashing a graphic that it had been 65 holes since Scheffler had a double bogey.
It’s actually now 66. He hit his approach shot with spin, landed on the slope and rolled it to 11 feet. The horn sounded to end play but Scheffler was allowed to finish the hole — he drained the putt, pumped his fist like he had just won the golf tournament and exited to a waiting golf cart.
There’ll be an 8 a.m. restart Monday, with Scheffler on 16 tee box. That’s assuming he’s still in Hilton Head — wife Meredith is at home in Dallas in the final stages of her pregnancy, and Scheffler has promised to withdraw from the tournament if she goes into labor.
Scheffler did not show up at Hilton Head until Wednesday after winning his second Masters, played nine holes in the pro-am and said he would see the rest of the course during his first round on Thursday. It was daring a signature event field to beat him, but instead, he shot a first-round 69, followed that up with a 65 on Friday and a 63 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead into Sunday.
He just grew the lead from there, with a chip-in eagle on No. 2 and a birdie on No. 5. He also had a birdie on No. 13, but most importantly did not give those chasing an inch with zero bogeys in the fourth round.
The RBC Heritage finish will be broadcast on the Golf Channel.
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(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
