Scottie Scheffler back to his dominant self and opens PGA Tour postseason with 8-shot win

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler thought the bunker shot was ideal until he saw it bounce hard off a sprinkler, roll across the green and disappear down the slope and into the water. A sure birdie turned into a bogey. His two-shot lead Sunday in the FedEx St. Jude Championship was down to one.

For a player who has endured five runner-up finishes in nearly seven months of close calls, Scheffler had reason to wonder what was next to go wrong. He asked caddie Ted Scott as they walked over to take a penalty drop, “When is this going to stop happening?”

Almost immediately, as it turned out.

Scheffler drilled a mid-iron to 10 feet for birdie two holes later. He holed a 20-foot birdie on the next. A two-shot lead at the start quickly turned into a runaway. He closed with a 4-under 66 for an eight-shot victory, the largest margin in 68 years at the TPC Southwind.

“I felt like I had some close calls this year, so it was nice to finish the tournament off,” Scheffler said.

It helped to post a 61 in the second round and keep the lead going into Sunday. This was his 11th straight time he converted a 54-hole lead into a win.

This victory was the 21st of his career — all since 2022 — and it ended nearly seven months without a title during a season that has been marked by astonishing consistency but only one trophy to show for it from his season opener at The American Express in the California desert.

“I felt like a week like this was coming,” Scheffler said. “I felt like I was on repeat all year just being like, ‘Hey, I’m playing solid. I’m close.’ It feels good to be answering some different questions at the end of this week.”

He finished at 17-under 263, eight shots clear of his Dallas neighbor Si Woo Kim, who closed with a 68 to finish eight shots behind. The previous record was John Cook winning at TPC Southwind by seven shots in 1996.

Scheffler has now won 10 of his 21 tour titles by four shots or more.

Sam Burns, one of Scheffler's best friends in golf, played with him in the final group and took double bogey on the par-5 third hole. He shot 73 and tied for third with Alex Noren (69).

“I don't think it would have mattered if I played well,” Burns said. “He was going to be tough to beat today.”

Scheffler won $3.6 million from the prize fund, and he clinched an additional $23 million in bonus money for being No. 1 in the FedEx Cup through next week's BMW Championship. No one can catch him. No one is particularly close in the game at the moment, even when he's not piling up trophies.

Scheffler now has two victories, five runner-up finishes and five other top 4s in another stellar year that until Sunday was marked by his lack of winning compared with previous years. The TPC Southwind was the course he had played the most times without winning, and the FedEx Cup playoffs opener had been the only postseason tournament he had yet to win. All that changed.

Scheffler's most recent start was another runner-up finish at the 3M Open in Minnesota, another rally that came up short. But it was those two weeks at home that made the difference.

“I felt like I found something just getting my hands on the club,” he said. “I had a really good kind of prep week coming in, probably the best I played at home over the course of this year. I didn’t really feel like I needed to be on the range hitting balls. I was just getting out playing, competing.”

More than a few of those games were with Kim, who earlier this year said of Scheffler, “He calls me ATM.” Kim moved to a career-best No. 13 in the world.

Im wound up with a 75 to tie for fifth, but it was enough for the South Korean to move from No. 53 into the top 50 who advance to the BMW Championship next week in St. Louis. Im kept alive his chances of reaching the Tour Championship every year since he was a rookie in 2019.

Im bumped out Keith Mitchell, who stood in the water left of the 18th fairway to play a shot from the bank as he tried to give himself his best chance. That shot tumbled into the water, he made bogey and narrowly missed out.

So did Jordan Spieth, who needed to close with four pars to reach the BMW Championship for the first time since 2023, and finished with a bogey from the water on No. 15 and three pars for a 70.

The top 50 who advance also are assured of playing all the $20 million signature events next year.

Scheffler put himself squarely in the mix for a fifth straight PGA Tour player of the year during a season in which no one has stood out based on titles alone. The body of work has been impressive, and Scheffler still has two tournaments remaining.

See AP’s full golf coverage here

Sam Burns hits from a bunker on the 13th hole during the final round of the St. Jude Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Scottie Scheffler hits from the 14th tee during the final round of the St. Jude Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Scottie Scheffler tosses his ball to his cadie on the 11th green during the final round of the St. Jude Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Scottie Scheffler hits from a bunker to the eighth green during the final round of the St. Jude Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Scottie Scheffler celebrates winning on the 18th green the final round of the St. Jude Championship golf tournament, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

RUTENG, Indonesia (AP) — Rescue teams in eastern Indonesia recovered six more bodies Sunday, a day after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, raising the death toll to 53, authorities said, as many of the thousands of displaced people spent the night outdoors in fear of aftershocks.

Rescuers dug through debris looking for anyone buried beneath landslides triggered by the quake across six regencies on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in the Muslim-majority country. They focused on three regencies that remained inaccessible: hardest-hit Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo.

“We have cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communication disruptions and power outages continue to hamper search efforts,” said Fathur Rahman, head of the search-and-rescue office in Maumere, the capital of Sikka regency.

More than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 more damaged in East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people into temporary shelters. At least 241 homes were damaged in the Flores region alone, said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s chief for disaster prevention.

The quake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) shortly before 6 a.m. Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents fled in panic as tsunami warnings were issued and later lifted.

Authorities have since recorded at least 995 aftershocks, but only 46 were felt by residents, Muhari said, adding that 135 people were injured.

Many residents at Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park, one of Indonesia’s best-known tourist destinations, spent the night outside because of the aftershocks.

“The shaking was terrifying, so intense that my house nearly collapsed,” said farmer Anastasia Imad, speaking from a makeshift green tent beside her damaged home. “We feared the aftershocks would bring it down on us while we slept.”

Landslides blocked sections of the Trans-Flores Highway, a roughly 700-kilometer (435-mile) road linking communities across the mountainous island.

Meanwhile, relief workers distributed rice, ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, while emergency shelters were set up for displaced residents. Authorities said restoring electricity and communications, as well as delivering aid to remote villages isolated by landslides, were among the biggest challenges.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped arc of seismic faults and volcanoes.

Flores has experienced some of the country’s deadliest disasters. A powerful earthquake and tsunami in 1992 killed about 2,500 people on the island.

In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake triggered a tsunami on the island of Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people. In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 quake off Sumatra unleashed a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Patients are treated in a makeshift tent outside a hospital, amid fears of aftershocks following an earthquake, in Ruteng, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

A worker removes a broken furniture inside a room at the local government office which was damaged during an earthquake in Ruteng, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

Saverinus Serli, left, inspects his earthquake-damaged house in Lelak, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

A woman sits inside a tent amid fear of aftershocks following an earthquake, in Reok, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Aquila Handayani Abbas)

A woman holds a cross she recovered from the rubble of her earthquake-damaged house in Mbeliling, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

A man checks his phone near a building collapsed due to an earthquake, in Reok, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Aquila Handayani Abbas)

Patients are treated in the hallway of a hospital following an earthquake in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

Stefanus Sailon, right, and his wife Sisilia Ilus inspect their house which was damaged during an earthquake in Mbeliling, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

A man stands inside his earthquake-damaged house in Mbeliling, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

Maria Imakulata Ndue, right, and her son Yohanes Defrianus Ratu stand outside their earthquake-damaged house in Lembor, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)

In this photo released by the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS), rescuers search for victims at a damaged building following an earthquake in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (BASARNAS via AP)