'Keep doing what I'm doing' - Scheffler five up in two-man shootout for FedEx Cup

World No. 6 Collin Morikawa lies second going into the final round of the 2024 PGA Tour season on Sunday.

Scottie Scheffler  (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

In what has narrowed down to a two-man shootout for the FedEx Cup, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will take a five-shot lead over No. 6 Collin Morikawa into the final round of the 2024 PGA Tour season on Sunday.

Scheffler added a second consecutive 5-under 65 in the third round, pushing his total to 26-under thanks to the 10 strokes he started with as the top seed at the Tour Championship.

“Keep doing what I’ve been doing, staying in the moment, staying patient out there,” Scheffler said of his Sunday gameplan to finally take home the FedEx Cup title after failing to convert as the top seed in each of the previous two seasons. 

“I’ve bogeyed the first hole two of the last three days and both times when I bogeyed the first hole I didn’t make any bogeys after that, so that’s kind of good momentum for me. I feel like I’ve done a lot of stuff well and played solid, so I’m looking forward to the challenge of trying to finish off the tournament tomorrow and continuing to do that.” 

Morikawa has scored one stroke better than Scheffler over 54 holes gross, but his 4-under 66 Saturday lost ground on the leaderboard as he stands at 21-under, five behind Scheffler but four ahead of Sahith Theegala in third. Morikawa began the week six behind Scheffler in the starting strokes scoring system.

“Not exactly the moving day that I needed, but I knew this entire week I was going to need something special to come out on top and I’m going to need something very special,” said Morikawa, who hasn’t won all season but has put himself in the picture on multiple occasions including the final pairing in the Masters with Scheffler and the PGA Championship with Xander Schauffele. “But I believe in myself, and hopefully that comes out tomorrow.” Scheffler’s determination to cap off his epic season in proper fashion but being crowned FedEx Cup champion for the first time isn’t manufactured by his frustration at failing to close it out in 2022 and 2023.

“I don’t know, I mean, it’s disappointing anytime I don’t win,” he said of his past experiences at East Lake. “I felt like two years ago I had a really good chance to win, wasn’t able to get it done. Last year I was close and I think I had a couple bad last rounds. I don’t remember specifically. I don’t know if I played very good here at all last year. I didn’t, did I? I don’t remember playing very well.

“Yeah, it’s just one of those deals where anytime you don’t win a tournament I’m going to leave pretty disappointed. That’s pretty much it.” 

On Sunday, Morikawa will try to do what Rory McIlroy did two years ago and rally from a big 54-hole deficit to take down Scheffler. The two-time major winner was tied with Scheffler on Sunday at the Masters in April before a pair of double bogeys derailed his chances. At Valhalla playing with Schauffele on Sunday in May, his putter just went cold at the wrong time.

“Every experience that I’ve played, not just that one (at Augusta), but there’s been a lot that I can draw on,” Morikawa said. “Look, tomorrow I know I’ve got to go out from hole 1 and have a lot of energy and be ready to play golf and make something happen.

“I mean, it’s going to be very hard, but I believe in myself that I can do it. Five shots is a lot, but two-shot swings happen. I think I’ve seen a couple over the past few days. I’ve just got to play my game. I’ve got to go low, I know that. Hopefully I’ve got that in me. I’ve got 18 holes left to the season. I keep talking about that, but I’m going to put everything I have into these next 24 hours.” 

Sahith Theegala sits in third at 17-under after finishing with five consecutive birdies and seven in his last eight holes to shoot 66. He would have tied the low round of the week except he had to swallow a two-shot penalty on the third hole when he told a rules official he believed he touched the sand on his back swing from the fairway bunker. Video couldn’t confirm what Theegala saw, but his par on the hole turned into a double.

“I really think I moved the sand; it’s just a bummer there’s not clear footage,” Theegala said. “If someone were to ask me, ‘did you move the sand?’ I would say yes, because I saw it. I thought I saw it, and we’ve played a lot of golf and your intuition as a golfer is very rarely wrong. So it’s a tough pill to swallow, but rules of golf are the rules of golf.” 

Schauffele fell to a distant fourth at 16-under after a Saturday – his worst score ever in 31 career rounds at East Lake even though it’s now even par on the renovated golf course. He’s struggled all week to find the fairways with his driver and paid the price.

“Pretty bad,” Schauffele said of his round. “Got off to a bad start, and then I hit, I think, six fairways maybe, five or six fairways. I just haven’t really hit any fairways all week. I think it was pretty good for me to shoot 7-under (on Friday) hitting seven fairways. That’s literally as good as I could do. To do that, again, is a big ask. Today I just didn’t capitalize when I was in the fairway those six times.” Wyndham Clark and Adam Scott are tied for fifth at 15-under and Sam Burns is seventh at 14-under just ahead of Shane Lowry alone in eighth at 13-under.