Scheffler defies Morikawa in thriller to maintain remarkable run of form

World No.1 holds off compatriot’s challenge to win fifth title in past eight starts and lay down another marker for US Open

Very few winners of The Memorial can look Jack Nicklaus squarely in the eye when they shake the tournament promoter’s hand as they walk off the 18th and believe they are completely worthy of the Golden Bear’s patronage. Scottie Scheffler can.
Even Nicklaus would be proud of the world No 1’s remarkable run. This thrilling one-shot victory over fellow two-time major winner Collin Morikawa, in tough conditions at Muirfield Village, was Scheffler’s fifth title in his past eight starts and he was second in two and eighth at the US PGA in the other.
The 27-year-old was the clear favourite anyway for the US Open  that begins at Pinehurst on Thursday, but after this latest show of clinical front-running, his candidacy to lift a second major title of the season looks overwhelming.
The route to the £3.2 million winning cheque was not completely straightforward for the Masters champion who had a four-shot overnight advantage in Columbus, Ohio.
Canadian Adam Hadwin closed to within one on the front nine as he picked up three-shots in his first six holes and Scheffler bogeyed the fifth. But Hadwin dropped shots on the eighth and ninth. Then Morikawa took up the chase. Scheffler seemed assured when he was two strokes ahead playing the 17th. But a bogey on the penultimate four set up a nervy climax, in which Scheffler proved impervious with a fine up and down for a 74 and eight-under. Next stop, North Carolina.
Hadwin came third, with England’s Matt Fitzpatrick enjoying a return to form with a tie for fifth on two-under after a 69. The severity of the course was shown when Shane Lowry signed for an 85.
Rory McIlroy was challenging for a top-five finish before he dropped five shots in five holes on the back nine. He recovered to post a 76 or a two-over total and a tie for 15 and he will try to take the positives into the season’s third major. Reports from Pinehurst are that it will be fast and firm and McIlroy will be glad as he tries to win a fifth major and end his near decade-long barren run.
“After The Open Championship in 2019 I’d had a disappointing run in the majors, and I tried to change my mindset,” said McIlroy, who finished second last year at the US Open.  
“Since then I’ve come to love it when it is fast and firm. It was last year at LACC [Los Angeles Country Club] and I really liked it.  If you look at my results from 2019 until now I would say the US Open has arguably been my best major in the last few years. It’s a challenge to me because I know I have that reputation as, ‘oh well he only won when things were soft’.”
On the DP World Tour, Sebastian Soderberg suffered one of the most chilling surrenders in the circuit’s history. He was eight shots ahead going into the final round of the Scandinavian Mixed, but three-putted the final green for a final-round 77 that saw him lose by one to fellow Swede Linn Grant.
This was Grant’s second victory in an event which featured 78 men and 78 women compete for one prize fund and one trophy. Grant, 24, was brilliant in her 65 to make up an astonishing 11-shot gap in her hometown of Helsingborg.
She was not to know it at the times, but her chip-in from the bank around the green was the winning shot. “I didn’t even think that I had the chance of winning,” the Solheim Cup player said. “I just wanted to go out and have fun.”