OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — All that was left was a few holes, a few putts, a hug with caddie Ted Scott, a kiss for wife Meredith, a wave to the crowd, a trophy presentation, a news conference, a few laughs, a speech to the Olympia Fields Country Club members, a long line of handshakes, and that would be it. Scottie Scheffler would have his seventh PGA Tour win in the books.
It was all just a matter of actually doing those things.
But then a 20-yard bump-and-run into the par-5 15th green stopped 13 feet short, leaving a birdie putt Scheffler would miss on a hole he was supposed to birdie. The 27-year-old, who all at once can seem impossibly gifted and impossibly vulnerable, slowed his walk. He said later of that chip shot: “It landed maybe a foot short of where I wanted to, and then the second bounce was the one that really got me. I thought I was going to one-hop it onto the green, but it hit that poa annua and kind of stopped.”
Walking off the 15th green, Scheffler looked mystified, so much so that he hardly seemed to notice what was cooking ahead of him. Over on 17, Viktor Hovland, whose contention in this 2023 BMW Championship was thought to have been over long ago, rolled in a 9-footer for birdie — his sixth on the back nine to that point.
But Scheffler would regroup,…
