Weekly Recap: Great Scott!

After budding superstar David Duval finally won his long-awaited first PGA Tour title in 1997 at the age of 25, he won his second the very next week.

Scottie Scheffler, himself a 25-year-old budding superstar, couldn't quite match Duval's feat, but that seems to be nitpicking.

Scheffler was the last man standing amid brutal playing conditions at Bay Hill on Sunday to capture the Arnold Palmer Invitational by one stroke, just three weeks after his maiden victory at the WM Phoenix Open.

Scheffler shot an even-par 72 to finish at a mere 5-under-par, one stroke better than the trio of Viktor Hovland, Billy Horschel and Tyrrell Hatton. The scoring average for the final round was 75.481, and there were six rounds in the 80s as the fast greens and windy conditions sent scores soaring. 

When Scheffler won at Phoenix on Feb. 13, he relinquished the title of "Best Golfer Without a PGA Tour Title" in his third full season on Tour, after coming close with two runners-up and three third-place results. Similarly, Duval had seven runners-up before winning the now-defunct Kingsmill and Walt Disney tournaments in October 1997 in his third full season on Tour. A mere two weeks later, Duval won yet again -- at the season-ending TOUR Championship.

Can Scheffler continue the general parallel this week at THE PLAYERS Championship?

To close the loop on Duval, he went on to win 13 times, including a TOUR Championship, a PLAYERS and an Open Championship in a stellar career cut short by injury. He was so good that he overtook an in-the-middle-of-his-prime Tiger Woods and occupied the No. 1 in the world rankings for 15 weeks in 1999.

Can Scheffler also reach No. 1? After his hard-fought victory Sunday, he's now up to No. 5 in the world -- ahead of Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth, among many others.

In between Scheffler winning at Phoenix and Bay Hill, he tied for seventh at Riviera, showing there was no letup and no hangover after his breakthrough. All three fields were loaded, and Bay Hill was even stronger than Phoenix.

This is the best stretch of golf we've seen since late 2020, when Johnson won a playoff event and the Masters and finished second three times -- including at the PGA -- all in just three months.

Scheffler has created some separation between himself and No. 6 McIlroy and is within range of No. 4 Patrick Cantlay and No. 3 Hovland. But he's also not far from No. 2 Collin Morikawa or even No. 1 Jon Rahm, whom he could overtake this coming week if everything breaks right.

It was clear entering this season that Scheffler's first win was coming, and real soon, but this second win, and so soon, is remarkable. When you consider he is ranked top-20 on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach, Putting and Tee-to-Green, plus greens in regulation, it makes more sense.

Wouldn't that upend the PGA Tour?

We could keep writing and continue to laud Scheffler, but why? You get the picture. He is peaking at just the right time, with THE PLAYERS followed soon after by the Masters and the other three majors in the months ahead.

After Duval won three times at the tail end of 1997, he won four times in 1998 and again in 1999 before closing out his supernova of a career with the 2001 Open Championship.

That's asking a lot of Scheffler or any one player. Let's just see what develops for him over the next few weeks and months.

Because right now, Scheffler could be the "Best Golfer Who Hasn't Won a Major."

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Viktor Hovland
The margin of victory on the PGA Tour is so slim that any weakness will be exposed. As good as Scheffler was, Hovland was right there. Except for his bunker game. In falling one shot short of a playoff, Hovland was a dismal 3 of 13 in sand saves on the week, including 0 of 4 on Sunday. Paul Azinger said on NBC that Hovland "almost looks clueless in the bunkers." For an analyst in the vanilla world of golf analysis, that was remarkable. And tells you how bad Hovland's sand game was. Otherwise, he was 27th in putting and even 15th in scrambling – two longstanding weaknesses in his game that are getting better.

Billy Horschel
Horschel is playing the best golf of his career – outside of that remarkable run in the 2014 playoffs. With this runner-up, he's gone 2-16-6-11 in his past four starts and has missed just one cut in a year. He's now 15th in the world, just off his best of 12th. Horschel got a drop for the ages on 18 on Saturday, possibly saving two shots, but that does nothing to diminish the way he gutted out his entire round on Sunday, even though it was a 3-over 75.

Tyrrell Hatton
This was Hatton's first PGA Tour start of 2022, and he wound up tied for second with a brilliant Sunday 69 after ballooning to a 78 on Saturday. That was one of just two rounds in the 60s on Sunday. Hatton won Bay Hill at 4-under in 2020 when it was the hardest course on Tour all season and conditions were also brutal. Combined with two top-6s on the DP World Tour earlier this year, Hatton is now once again safely inside the top-25 at No. 16.

Gary Woodland
Woodland turned the tournament upside-down when he eagled 16 to actually take the outright lead with two holes to play. But that was followed quickly by a soul-crushing double bogey on 17 and another bogey on 18 to leave him in a tie for fifth. Of course, it was disaster finish for Woodland, but in a few days he'll realize that after a couple of years of injuries and a plummeting world ranking he now has back-to-back top-5s, is back inside the top 100 of the OWGR at No. 91 and maybe, just maybe, is rediscovering his world-class game.

Chris Kirk
Kirk keeps on delivering, with this top-5 now leaving him with results of 5-7-14 over his past three starts. And this was with two late bogeys on 14 and 15 that wrecked his chances. Kirk ranked sixth in the field in SG: Tee-to-Green, and that's been the hallmark of his resurgence. He's now ranked 12th on Tour this season. About two years after taking a leave to tackle an alcohol problem, Kirk is ranked 79th in the world. On top of all the good fortune, he secured a spot in the historic 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews this summer; the API is part of the Open Qualifying Series, meaning up to three finishers inside the top-10 not already exempt into the Open are granted berths.

Talor Gooch
If you would've told us that the overnight co-leader played the back-nine in 2-under in these brutal conditions, we probably would've thought he had won. But not when you shoot 43 on the front. Gooch imploded himself out of the tournament in rapid fashion but at least hung on to tie for seventh. Last month when he was in the penultimate group at Phoenix, he shot 39 on the front and tumbled all the way to 26th. Like Kirk, Gooch secured a berth in the Open Championship via the Open Qualifying Series.

Matt Fitzpatrick
Fitzpatrick was a horse course coming in with three straight Bay Hill top-10s and now he has a fourth with a tie for ninth. We don't think we'll have to remind you of this next year.

Sam Burns
After three missed cuts in a row, Burns stopped the bleeding with a much-needed tie for ninth.

Corey Conners
With three missed cuts and a T38 in his past four starts, this tie for 11th was a welcome sign for Conners. It's hard to keep a good ball-striker down for long, but Conners was testing that theory.

Rory McIlroy
It was a Sunday disaster for McIlroy, following a Saturday disaster for McIlroy, who shot 6-over-par both days to tumble out of the top 10 into a tie 13th. McIlroy bluntly talked about the course bordering on being unfair, saying that good shots were not being rewarded. This broke a run of five straight Bay Hill top-10s for McIlroy, who needs to cool off in a matter of days before THE PLAYERS.

Cameron Young
With a tie for 13th, Young is up to a career-best 44th in the world and is surging heading into THE PLAYERS: 13-16-2-26-20 in his past five starts. He needs to hang on in the top-50 for a few more weeks to get into the Masters. The way he's playing, seems likely.

Jon Rahm
The headline for Rahm this week was that he missed a 10-inch putt on Thursday. He ended up tied for 17th, which is a good week for most golfers but not him. With 17-21-10 finishes over his past three starts, it's now three average-at-best starts in a row for the world No. 1.

Tommy Fleetwood
The tough conditions are probably Fleetwood's best chance for a good finish these days, and he tied for 20th to prevent falling out of the top 50 of the OWGR. He inched up to 49th.

Nick Watney 
Watney is 40 years old and playing this season with a one-time career-earnings exemption. For the next 10 years, till he becomes eligible for the Champions Tour, he'll need good PGA Tour finishes to keep his card. He was headed toward one until dropping two balls in the water on 15 for a gut-punching quintuple-bogey 9. He wound up in 20th place. Watney already has one great finish this season, a runner-up at the Sanderson Farms, so he doesn't need to do a whole lot more to keep his playing privileges for next season. He's No. 42 in the FedExCup Standings.

Patrick Reed
Reed missed a third straight cut and doesn't have a top-10 of consequence since the Memorial last June. He did record top-10s in Bermuda and in the Hero World Challenge.

Takumi Kanaya
The Japanese sensation and former world No. 1 amateur continues to struggle on the PGA Tour, missing the cut for the ninth time in 12 career starts.

Nicolai Hojgaard
Hojgaard missed the cut for the second straight week in his second career PGA Tour start. PGA National and Bay Hill are not where you want to start your PGA Tour career.

Ryan Brehm
The 35-year-old veteran was playing in the alternate-field Puerto Rico Open needing a solo second or better in the final start on a minor medical extension. He ended up with better. Brehm won by six strokes for not only the first win in 68 career PGA Tour starts but his first top-10. The win doesn't get Brehm into the Masters but he should be able to make another 68 starts over the next two-plus years with his card secure through 2023-24.