Dominant Scottie Scheffler cruises to four-shot success in 153rd Open

The world No 1 had slept on a four-shot cushion. He’d converted 54-hole leads to win The Masters in both 2022 and 2024, as well as the PGA Championship earlier this year. He rarely has off days. Based on how he’d plotted his way around the delightful Dunluce Links on the County Antrim coast in the opening three circuits, there was absolutely nothing to suggest he’d have one on this occasion.

Especially not when Mother Nature had nothing up her sleeve to help the chasing pack. If it had been wet and, even more so windy, there might have been the chance of the leader slipping up somewhere. Hot and benign wasn’t what the likes of Rory McIlroy, Haotong Li, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele needed.

Rounding off an incredible recovery after opening with a 78, Bryson DeChambeau closed with a sensational 64 to finish on nine under, one better than Rickie Fowler after he signed for a 65. They’d both started the day too far back, though, to apply any sort of pressure on Scheffler.

When he set out at 2.30pm, all that remained to be determined in this edition of the game’s oldest major was the margin of victory and no-one who has watched Scheffler dominate the game in Tiger Woods-esque fashion over the past three years would have been surprised that he wasted no time letting us know that he intended to extend his overnight cushion.

Admittedly aided by getting a touch lucky as a tugged tee shot bounced straight and narrowly avoided some thick stuff a few feet away, the 29-year-old immediately showed his class by using the bank on the right to stick his approach at the first to a foot. If Li, who’d put his effort in close as well, thought he’d be striking a significant early blow, he soon found out otherwise and duly damaged his own hopes by taking a sloppy 6 at the second.

When Scheffler birdied the fourth from eight feet, just finding the left edge, his lead was up to seven strokes, prompting a check of the Media Guide to see what the record winning margin is in this event. Set back in 1862 by Old Tom Morris at Prestwick, it is actually 13 shots. In the modern era, Woods won by eight shots in 2000 at St Andrews while, more recently, Louis Oosthuizen had stormed to a seven-shot success at the same venue in 2010. And here, of course, Shane Lowry’s victory margin in 2019 had been six shots.

Despite laying up with a 3-wood, Scheffler still birdied the driveable par-4 fifth, where a 14-footer dropped, before showing how he’s a class apart when it comes to salvaging a sticky situation. His tee shot at the par-3 sixth came up short and rolled back to the bottom of a steep slope. He did well to get it to 16 feet and one of the biggest fist pumps you are likely to see from him showed exactly what a par save there meant.

He did likewise at the long seventh before the chasers were offered a glimmer of hope. Bunkered off the tee at the eighth, Scheffler’s second caught the lip and ended up back at his feet. Leading to a double-bogey 6, his lead was suddenly down to just four shots over newly-crowned Genesis Scottish Open champion Chris Gotterup. The door, though, was soon slammed shut. As he does so well, Scheffler stuck his approach at the ninth to around three feet. Crisis over.

Going on to sign for a closing 68, Scheffler finished with a 17-under-par total, winning by four shots in the end from compatriot Harris English, who closed with a 66, with Gotterup, now suddenly a contender for the US Ryder Cup team in September after picking up close to $3 million in the space of eight days, a further shot back in third place.

Having preceded his closing salvo with equally-impressive scores of 65 and 68, DeChambeau’s 197 total - it was 16 under in relation to par - over the last 54 holes was the second lowest in Open history. Only Henrik Stenson has finished in better fashion, beating DeChambeau’s effort by one when he triumphed at Royal Troon in 2016.

“I still have to crack the code when it's raining and windy,” admitted DeChambeau, who tied tied for tenth after staring a missed cut in the face on Thursday night. “But I feel like we're getting close to some opportunities and solutions for that. It was a fun three days. I was really proud of the way I turned it around.”

McIlroy, who’d made a charge on Saturday in front of the adoring home fans but couldn’t muster something similar when he was hoping to turn up the heat on Scheffler in the match behind, finished a highly-respectable joint-seventh alongside Xander Schauffele as he produced an admirable title defence.

It was a good week, too, for a rejuvenated Fitzpatrick - the Englishman tied for fourth with Li and Wyndham Clark - in his bid to retain a Ryder Cup spot in September. Also Bob MacIntyre, who backed up his runner-up finish in the US Open last month by ending up alongside McIlroy and Scheffler, just outside where he finished on his major debut here in 2019.

The week, though, belonged to one man. Scheffler is the only player other than Woods to win this event as the world No 1. Like Schauffele in 2024, he has landed both the Wanamaker Trophy and the Claret Jug this year. In claiming the latter, he extended a run that has now produced 12 first-time winners in The Open.

On this evidence, however, there’s a good chance that Scheffler can emulate Woods again by becoming the first back-to-back winner since 2006. Get prepared for another ‘Scottie Scheffler Show’ at Royal Birkdale in 12 months’ time.