Scottie Scheffler’s Dominance Overshadows Collin Morikawa’s Pebble Beach Win

I like Collin Morikawa. I’ve been a fan since I watched him win his first major, in awe of his elite iron play. I waited out his awkward “I don’t owe anyone anything” shtick last year after he shunted a Sunday press conference when Russell Henley beat him with a (lucky) chip-in.

Morikawa broke a 2 1/2-year drought by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday, doing so by playing two excellent weekend rounds in windy conditions. He beat an elite field and, importantly, beat Scottie Scheffler for the first time in what feels like a long time.

Yet with all requisite kudos to Morikawa, the story of the week still somehow became Scheffler. It always seems to be Scheffler.

When people start comparing Scheffler’s dominance to Tiger Woods’, it’s time to start taking them seriously. Scheffler can’t stay away from the top of the leaderboard no matter how poor he starts a tournament, as he showed each of the past two weeks.

At the WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler struggled mightily on Thursday and shot a 1-over-par 73. His made cuts streak was in jeopardy. You’d be excused for turning your attention to football the rest of the weekend and checking the final leaderboard later. Oh, there’s Scheffler, tied for third. Wait, what?

The dude went 65-67-64 the rest of the week and nearly won in spite of his first-round stinker.

OK, but that’s TPC Scottsdale. A fine course but not the toughest ever built, with plenty of scoring opportunities. This week was Pebble Beach, a major championship venue.

Well, first of all, it sure doesn’t play like a major in February weather. The winning score has landed between 17 and 22 under every year since 2015 – including 2024, when it was shortened to three rounds! Elite players are breezing through when the course is set up by the PGA Tour rather than the USGA, but that’s a column for another time.

But again, Scheffler opened with a pedestrian round, an even-par 72. And again, he stalked up the leaderboard over the next few days. He was 11 under through three rounds, eight off Akshay Bhatia’s lead.

My dad and I had a long-running personal joke about Woods that originated when we had a golf tournament on TV many years ago and Woods was seemingly out of contention five or six shots back on Sunday. Ian Baker-Finch said, “Tiger’s lurking.” When he was in his prime, golf broadcasters always felt Tiger was lurking.

Friends, we have reached peak Scheffler lurking. The dude is simply never out of a tournament. Because he went out Sunday and shot one of the best rounds of golf in Pebble Beach history, a 9-under 63 with three eagles, including an unforgettable 3 at the par-5 18th.

When Scheffler tapped in for eagle – again, tapped in for eagle at an iconic par-5 and all that wind and the tournament in the balance – he had the lead in the clubhouse. Bhatia had long since faded, and only Morikawa, Min Woo Lee and Sepp Straka would finish ahead of Scheffler the rest of the way.

His T4 marked his 18th consecutive top-10 finish in official events dating back to last March. Nearly a calendar year’s worth of top-10s, and the longest such streak since Billy Casper had 17 in the 1960s.

Even in his most brilliant days, Woods didn’t have a streak of consistency like this. Heck, neither did Jack Nicklaus. And no offense to Casper, but frankly you could argue he was up against plumbers and milkmen like the old line about the 1960s NBA. Scheffler is doing this during the era of peak performance and athletic training teams and AI figuring out how to maximize your sleep. He’s beating other multiple-major winners week in and week out.

“I could not care any less,” Scheffler said Saturday when informed his top-10 streak was in jeopardy. Then he went out there Sunday and obliterated an iconic golf course. Maybe it is more fun for him this way. It’s certainly more fun for us when the greatest of his generation is lurking.