By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer
LA QUINTA — New year, same Scottie Scheffler.
The top-ranked player in the world loves coming to the California desert early in the season to take stock of his game and get into tournament shape. There wasn’t much wrong Sunday in The American Express.
Scheffler made birdie on half of his holes, going from a two-shot deficit early to a lead that stretched to six shots late before he closed with a 6-under-par 66 for a four-shot victory.
“There’s always a certain amount of rust when it comes to playing competitive golf,” Scheffler said. “You can simulate as best you can at home, but you can only get into the heat of the moment when you’re posting a score and you’re in contention when you’re at a tournament. So it’s nice to see some of the stuff that I’ve been being practicing and working on has paid off.”
He had four birdies in a six-hole stretch on the front nine to blow past 18-year-old Blades Brown and everyone and the rest of the field.
Scheffler won for the 20th time on the PGA Tour – all in the last four years – to earn a lifetime membership. More indicative of his dominance in the game is winning nine of those 20 tournaments by four shots or more.
He also joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to have 20 PGA Tour titles and four majors before turning 30.
“Pretty wild,” Scheffler said. “It’s been a great start to my career. It’s been special. I try not to think about that stuff too much. I was just trying to do the things I needed to do to be prepared.”
Scheffler briefly shared the stage with Brown, who finished high school two weeks ago and tied for 17th in a Korn Ferry Tour event in the Bahamas that finished Wednesday. He’s the first player ever to play eight consecutive days of PGA Tour-sanctioned competition.
Whether the fatigue caught up with him or simply the moment – he was trying to become the youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years – it ended quickly.
Brown was one shot behind 54-hole leader Si Woo Kim and one shot ahead of Scheffler heading to the tee at the par-3 fourth on the Stadium Course at PGA West. Five holes later, Brown and Kim both were five shots behind and Scheffler was putting it into overdrive.
“Eight rounds I know sounds like a lot, but I was having a lot of fun,” he said. “You’re telling me I get to play in a PGA Tour event and to play with Scottie Scheffler and see him win it, that was insane.
“I got some things I got to sharpen up, and hopefully we see if we can do what Scottie’s doing.”
It all looked so routine at the end. Scheffler rapped in a par putt to finish at 27-under 261, stuffed the golf ball in his pocket and smiled. It all looks so routine.
“It seems like he never wants to relax,” said Jason Day, one of four players who won the B flight by finishing second. “He always does his work, needs to do whatever he needs to do to be able to prepare, and he’s always around the lead. And that’s a very, very difficult thing to do with how much distractions there can be, especially at No. 1.”
Scheffler seized control quickly after a birdie-bogey start. He hit 8-iron to 2 feet on the par-3 fourth hole, played the par-5 fifth smartly with a shot away from the water and a pitch-and-run he nearly holed from across the green for birdie. Wedges led to two more birdies to close out the front, two more early on the back to lead by four.
Brown’s chances seemed to end on one hole. He took an aggressive line and pulled his tee shot into the water on the par-5 fifth. He had to drop in front of the tee boxes – he chose to drop in the dormant Bermuda rough instead of the teeing ground – and then hit a poor wedge when he got back into position that led to double bogey.
Brown went 11 holes without a birdie and had to late bogeys that led to a 74. He fell from a tie for second to a tie for 18th, costing him a spot at Torrey Pines next week.
But it was a good lesson alongside a great teacher.
“I would say one of the coolest things that I learned today was how underrated Scottie Scheffler’s short game is,” Brown said. “To see it in person and just to look at kind of the trajectory and the spin, and just the control that he has with his wedges and short game. Obviously, his putting is insane, too. It was really cool to watch. So I’m definitely going to go work on that.”
Day closed with a 64 that moved him up 18 spots to a runner-up finish, along with Ryan Gerard (65), Matt McCarty (68) and Andrew Putnam (68).
Kim, who plays often with Scheffler at Royal Oaks in Dallas, also lost his way on one hole. He was two shots behind on the par-5 eighth when he took two shots to get out of a greenside bunker, chipped strong and made double bogey. He missed a 3-foot par putt on the next hole. Kim rallied with three birdies on the back nine to salvage a 72 and tie for sixth.
Scheffler’s only big blunder was when it didn’t matter, a tee shot into the water on the par-3 17th known as “Alcatraz,” and by then he had plenty of get-of-jail-free cards. His double bogey only kept the margin from being greater against the strongest field The American Express has had in decades.
Scheffler now takes a week off before ending the West Coast with three straight events, starting with the Phoenix Open where this amazing run began four years ago. He won his first PGA Tour title in a playoff. It hasn’t been that close lately.
