Scheffler wins Match Play, goes No. 1 with another title

AUSTIN, Texas – Scottie Scheffler is the hottest player in golf and now has the ranking to prove it.

Six weeks after his first PGA Tour victory, Scheffler won the Dell Technologies Match Play for his third title in his last five starts, this one enough to move him to No. 1 in the world.

“I never got that far in my dreams,” Scheffler said in the trophy ceremony before choking up and wiping away tears, a rare show of emotion for the 25year-old Texan. “I just play golf. I love competing. I’m happy to be out here, you know?”

One year after losing in the championship match, Scheffler never trailed against Kevin Kisner, building a 3-up lead through six holes and giving him no chance to catch up. Scheffler closed him out with a par on the 15th for a 4and-3 victory.

Scheffler never trailed in the semifinal win over Dustin Johnson or against Kisner – he went the final 57 holes at Austin Country Club without trailing – and he was so solid in the championship match that Kisner didn’t win a hole.

“He’s playing incredible golf,” Kisner said. “I couldn’t get the putter to cooperate.”

So much was going Scheffler’s way that on the par-5 12th, with Kisner looking at a 6-foot birdie, Scheffler didn’t hit his eagle chip hard enough and it rolled down a slope into a bunker. And then he holed the bunker shot for a birdie.

Right when Kisner looked as though he would win his first hole and cut the deficit to 2 down with seven to play, he had to made the 6-footer to keep from losing more ground. But a bogey on the 14th spelled the end for Kisner.

Scheffler, so even-keel on the course, was caught up in the moment when it was over. He won at Austin Country Club, where the Texas Longhorns occasionally practiced. Scheffler earned a business degree in four years without summer school.

Winning should now be familiar. Getting to No. 1? That might explain the tears as he hugged every family member around him.

And then he had nothing to say, laughing as he searched for words.

“I’m pretty worn out right now,” he

said.

Scheffler won the Phoenix Open six week ago, and followed that with a win at Bay Hill to move to No. 5 in the world. He needed help from Jon Rahm to get to the top. Rahm, who had been No. 1 since July 18, lost in the fourth round in 19 holes to Brooks Koepka. That paved the way for Scheffler to replace him by winning the Match Play.

He is the sixth-youngest player to reach No. 1 since the world ranking began in 1986.

Scheffler joined Kisner as the only players to win the Match Play the year after losing in the championship match.

Scheffler had to hold his breath in the semifinals Sunday morning against Dustin Johnson. He seized on Johnson’s worst round of putting to build a 5-up lead through 11 holes, only for Johnson to win the next four holes.

PGA Tour

PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic – Chad Ramey won the windswept Corales Puntacana Championship on Sunday for his first PGA Tour title, beating Ben Martin and Alex Smalley by a stroke.

Ramey closed with a 5-under 67, completing a two-putt par on the par-4

18th after Martin missed a 6-foot birdie try that would have forced a playoff.

“It was honestly like I always thought it would be,” Ramey said. “It was very stressful, very nerve-wracking coming down the stretch, but I just grinded it out, kind of stuck to my process, stayed within myself and pulled it out.”

Two strokes behind Martin entering the round, Ramey made four straight birdies on Nos. 13-16 to take the lead and parred the par-3 17th at Corales Golf Course.

“I’ve been rolling the putter good all day, they just hadn’t been going in,” Ramey said. “I was kind of all around the hole on the front side. I didn’t change a thing, I didn’t do anything different. They just started going in.”

With the tournament played opposite the Match Play event in Austin, Texas, Ramey earned an exemption into the PGA Championship but not the Masters. The 29-year-old from Mississippi finished at 17-under 271.

“I think it will take maybe a day or two to sink in,” Ramey said. “Everything’s pretty surreal, happening pretty fast, but I’m definitely excited.”

Martin, the leader after each of the first three rounds, closed with a 70.

ERICH SCHLEGEL/USA TODAY SPORTS Scottie Scheffler plays his approach shot on the 14th fairway in the final round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament on Sunday in Austin, Texas.