CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler made an 8-foot par putt on the 18th hole Sunday and pumped his fist with more emotion than he showed all day, just for the right to return Monday at the rain-delayed Travelers Championship to face a sudden-death playoff against Viktor Hovland.
The final round was stopped for 90 minutes as storms moved over the TPC River Highlands, and officials deemed there was not enough daylight for them to start the playoff.
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Scottie Scheffler, left, shakes hands with Viktor Hovland, right, of Norway, after finishing tied in the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Viktor Hovland, center, of Norway, moves his ball due to standing water without penalty on the 18th fairway during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler, left, shakes hands with Viktor Hovland, right, of Norway, after finishing tied in the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to his tee shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
A sign announces that play is temporarily suspended due to dangerous weather during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, reacts to his shot at the fifth hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler hits off the fifth hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
The playoff was to start at 9 a.m. Monday, the first time a PGA Tour went an extra day since The Players Championship last year.
“It’s more fun when you’re making the ones to win,” Scheffler said. “But to keep yourself in it is also nice. Like I said, I live another day until tomorrow, and will be coming out in the morning and see what I can do.”
Scheffler and Hovland each had birdie chances at the end. Scheffler rammed his 30-foot putt 8 feet by the hole. Hovland's 25-foot attempt missed by inches and he tapped in for a 69. Scheffler made his third big par putt for a 68 to match Hovland at 21-under 259.
That was one shot ahead of Collin Morikawa, who closed with a 61 and was briefly tied for the lead, though it never looked as though it would be enough.
Hovland, who went into the final round with a one-shot lead over Scheffler, found himself two back when play was halted by a pounding rain and lightning in the area, both of them in the fairway on the 14th hole.
Hovland poured in a 15-foot birdie putt from just off the green, to get within one shot and Scheffler had to make a 6-foot par putt to stay in the lead.
On the reachable par-4 15th, Scheffler's pitch from the collar of rough — wet grass might have saved his tee shot from going in the water — raced toward the pin on the top shelf and kept right on going, over the back and down a slope. He chipped that just onto the green and made another big par putt with Hovland in tight for a third straight birdie.
That left them tied. Scheffler missed a big opportunity on a 10-foot birdie chance on the 17th that spun off of the left edge of the cup, and the world's No. 1 player did well to hammer a shot from the wet rough right of the 18th fairway to just inside 30 feet.
PGA Tour official decided before they finished the 18th there would not be enough light to play even one extra hole.
They arrived at the playoff in different manners — Scheffler with three birdies against one bogey, Hovland going through a 10-hole stretch in the middle of his round with just two pars.
Hovland fell behind by two early, only for a two-shot swing on No. 7. There was a two-shot swing in Scheffler's favorite to start the back nine, and then Hovland made up ground with three straight birdies, the final two after rain changed the condition of the course.
The break was good for Hovland just to settle him down.
“I hit some good shots and then some bad shots and I just couldn’t quite get a flow in,” Hovland said. “So it was nice to just get completely off the golf course and reset and I felt a lot better coming back. So sometimes that’s all you need.”
Morikawa finished in style, a shot out of the wet sand in the bunker on the 18th to just inside 10 feet for ninth birdie of the round to post at 20-under 260. Morikawa, who started the day nine shots out of the lead, had to wait some three hours — including the delay — before leaving.
“The thought of actually having a chance, waiting it out, didn’t really cross my mind,” Morikawa said. “But I told my wife earlier this morning, ‘Let’s shoot 61 and end the three-week stretch on a good note.’ And sometimes the way you manifest things works out.”
Matt Fitzpatrick shot 64 to finish alone in fourth followed by U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, who played remarkably well after such a draining week at Shinnecock Hills. He was in it until a shot into the water for bogey on the 17th. Clark had a 65 and was three shots back.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Viktor Hovland, center, of Norway, moves his ball due to standing water without penalty on the 18th fairway during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler, left, shakes hands with Viktor Hovland, right, of Norway, after finishing tied in the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to his tee shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
A sign announces that play is temporarily suspended due to dangerous weather during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, reacts to his shot at the fifth hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler hits off the fifth hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine kept up its heavy drone assault on Russia, setting fire to a major oil refinery in the south, as President Vladimir Putin acknowledged for the first time on Sunday that the country was facing a “certain deficit” of fuel and vowed to strengthen protection of oil facilities and boost fuel output.
Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion — now in its fifth year — and make Russians feel the consequences.
“Our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”
The campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies, causing widespread shortages and long lines at gas stations across the country and prompting authorities in many regions to introduce fuel rationing. According to Western analysts, it has also slowed Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield, heaping pressure on the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table.
Speaking to a Russian state TV reporter, Putin described the Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries as an attempt to “cause a split in Russian society and force Russia to halt, even if only briefly, the advance of our troops along the line of contact, and create conditions for launching a negotiation process on terms advantageous to our adversary."
“We will not give them that chance,” Putin said, adding that “strikes on our infrastructure, wherever they are directed, have absolutely no effect on the situation at the front, on the line of contact.”
He said for the first time that Ukraine has proposed a halt on deep strikes, arguing that Kyiv made the offer because Russian strikes deep into Ukrainian territory are more powerful and devastating.
The Russian leader added that Kyiv also offered to limit the fighting to the four regions that Russia annexed but never fully captured - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. He rejected the proposal, arguing it would allow Ukraine to relocate its forces that are fighting Russian troops in other areas to let them focus on fending off the Russian attacks in the four southeastern regions.
Meanwhile, debris from downed Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, a town in Russia's Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, according to regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev. The falling debris killed one person in Slavyansk and wounded another in a nearby village, local authorities said.
The facility is one of southern Russia’s major refineries, processing close to 4 million tons of crude per year, according to its operator’s website. It is also a key source of petroleum products intended for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports, including fuel oil, naphtha and marine fuel.
Zelenskyy also claimed that another Russian refinery, in the Yaroslavl region around 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was hit during the nighttime strikes.
There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the strike on the Yaroslavl refinery. Local Gov. Mikhail Evraev reported on Sunday morning that some roads between Moscow and the region's capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones.”
For months, Ukraine has been stepping up attacks on energy facilities deep inside Russia. Despite a raft of Western sanctions, Moscow remains among the world's top exporters of oil and natural gas.
More recently, Ukraine has attempted to choke off fuel deliveries to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in early 2014. Last weekend, Kremlin-installed officials in Crimea suspended gasoline sales to civilians, after Kyiv's targeting of supply routes triggered the worst energy crisis there since the annexation.
Speaking at a meeting with officials that focused on the fuel situation, Putin admitted that the country was “going through a difficult period,” but insisted that Moscow would “honor all its social obligations.”
Shortly after, he told state TV that the country's arms industries will quickly ramp up production of air defense systems to fend off Ukrainian attacks.
Putin also said that Russia will import more fuel and speed up repair works at oil facilities to end the “temporary deficit.”
“All damaged facilities are being restored quite quickly, and the issues that arise are not critical,” he said.
Putin specifically pledged to quickly deal with fuel shortages in Crimea, saying that fuel deliveries to the Black Sea peninsula by land and sea will rise and voicing confidence that “this task will be accomplished.”
As fuel shortages spread across Russia, the governor of the Irkutsk region in Siberia, thousands of kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border, Igor Kobzev announced that drivers will only be allowed to buy no more than 50 liters (13 gallons) of fuel per vehicle per day at state-run Rosneft gas stations in the province. Other gas stations may set lower limits.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow was actively reviewing fuel export agreements to avoid compromising domestic needs.
Also on Sunday, a Russian aerial bomb killed two people in Zaporizhzhia — a city in southern Ukraine — and injured 16 others, including two children, said regional administration head Ivan Fedorov.
In Russia's border region of Belgorod, Ukrainian drone strikes killed one person and injured another earlier on Sunday, according to acting local Gov. Alexander Shuvayev.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 213 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russia, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were struck down, the air force said.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on domestic fuel supplies at the Kremlin in Moscow, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, chairs a meeting on domestic fuel supplies at the Kremlin in Moscow, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, sappers remove a fragment of the Russian missile in a residential neighbourhood following an air attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a sapper examines a fragment of the Russian missile in a residential neighbourhood following an air attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
