Canada’s Adam Hadwin faltered in the final round but finished third behind champion Scottie Scheffler at the Memorial tournament in Dublin, Ohio.
Hadwin, from Abbotsford, B.C., entered the day tied for second four shots back, but within one shot of the lead until finishing the front nine with a pair of bogeys. He stayed in the hunt until closing with a pair of bogeys for a 74. Still, his third-place finish moves him ahead of Corey Conners for the second Canadian spot in the Olympics.
The world ranking after next week’s U.S. Open determines who goes to Paris.
“You could look at it one of two ways,” said Hadwin, who picked up $1.4 million. “Either it’s good prep for next week or we just got our butts kicked before going into next week.”
Scheffler won for the fifth time this year.
On a Muirfield Village course so demanding only six players broke par, Scheffler had his highest final round in nearly two years at 2-over 74 for a final score of 8-under, and it was just enough to hold off Collin Morikawa who finished at 7-under.
Scheffler never lost the lead. He never felt safe, either, particularly on a back nine where saving par felt like hard work.
That’s what it took on the 18th hole. He was leading Morikawa by one shot and both hit approach shots that bounced hard and high off the green and into the rough. Both chipped to about five feet. Scheffler buried his putt to win, and the force of his fist pump to celebrate showed how tough this day was on him, and practically everybody.
Making the day even more special was the handshake with tournament host Jack Nicklaus, and cradling month-old son Bennett at his first PGA Tour event.
“This is a tough place to close out,” Scheffler said. “It was a fun test of golf. I like when it gets this hard. I didn’t do a whole lot great today, but I did enough.”
Scheffler won $4 million from this signature event and its $20 million purse. That pushes him over $24 million for the year, breaking the PGA Tour season earnings record — and it’s barely June — that he set last year in this era of rising purses.
He also become the first player since Tom Watson in 1980 to have won five times on the PGA Tour before the U.S. Open.
That’s next week at Pinehurst No. 2, and Scheffler will go to the U.S. Open as a huge favourite. This was his 11th consecutive tournament with a top 10.