Watch: World No.1 Scottie Scheffler Hits Shank At Tour Championship

Scheffler had his march towards the title checked by an uncharacteristic error from a bunker in the final round of the East Lake tournament

Scottie Scheffler shanks a bunker shot at the Tour Championship
Scottie Scheffler shanked a bunker shot at the Tour Championship
(Image credit: X @PGATour)
Mike Hall
By
published

For the majority of the Tour Championship, it has been business as usual for World No.1 Scottie Scheffler as he turned a two-shot advantage at the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale into a five-shot lead with one round to play.

The American is aiming for his maiden FedEx Cup title, and if he achieves it and takes the $25m first prize, it will cap an incredible season that has included seven other victories worldwide.

Scheffler’s form has been so good throughout 2024 that it can be easy to forget that he is still capable of the occasional mishap, and one of his rare mistakes came at a crucial point at the East Lake tournament.

Scheffler had opened up a seven-shot lead over the front nine of the final round, but a bogey on the seventh stymied his apparently relentless march to the title, and on the very next hole, he found himself in a bunker around 80 feet from the pin.

Such a scenario is ordinarily no problem for Scheffler, but on this occasion he shanked his effort, missing the green to the right to leave him work to do to avoid his third bogey of the round. Unfortunately for Scheffler, he couldn’t recover the situation and he did indeed finish with a costly five on the 324-yard par-4.

Even more concerning for Scheffler would have been the consistency of his closest rival on the leaderboard, Collin Morikawa, who birdied the hole to reduce the gap to just two shots with plenty of golf still to play.

That would have briefly given Morikawa hope that it could yet be him who lifts the trophy for the first time, but, perhaps inevitably, Scheffler closed the door no sooner than he had left it ajar. He followed his slip-up on the eighth with three successive birdies between the ninth and 11th to repair the damage and restore his five-shot advantage.

Scottie Scheffler takes a tee shot at the Tour Championship

Scheffler recovered well from his shanked bunker shot on the eighth

(Image credit: Getty Images)

For all Scheffler’s brilliance in 2024 there have been other uncharacteristic errors along the way. He suffered a similar shank from a bunker in April at the RBC Heritage, while in July, he topped a tee shot at The Open.

Mike Hall
Mike Hall
News Writer

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 

He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 

Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 

Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.

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