The par that made history
Scottie Scheffler stood over an eleven-foot putt on the first extra hole at TPC River Highlands and needed only a par. He took two putts, and the Travelers Championship was his. It was his sixth PGA Tour victory before July 2024, a rate of winning last seen more than six decades ago.
Scottie Scheffler became the first player to claim six Tour titles before July since Arnold Palmer in 1962. The others on that list are the sport's founding names. Scheffler joins an esteemed list of players to win six TOUR titles before July: in addition to Palmer in 1960 and 1962, the others are Jimmy Demaret (1940), Byron Nelson (1945), Ben Hogan (1946) and Sam Snead (1950).
Sunday's win came the hard way. Scheffler and Tom Kim matched 22-under 258 at TPC River Highlands before Scheffler won with a par on the first extra hole. Kim made a 10-footer for birdie on the 72nd hole to force a playoff, but the 22-year-old caught a plugged lie in the greenside bunker on his approach shot in the playoff, blasted to 36 feet and couldn't convert the par. Scheffler stayed calm where his opponent could not. The margin was one shot, decided by nerve rather than length.
The context sharpened the achievement. It was another milestone in Scheffler's season, his sixth Tour victory of 2024 in just 14 starts. Scheffler, who turned 28 the previous Friday, had by then moved into a share of sixth place for single-season wins since 1983.
A season that echoed the past
The trajectory had a fitting shape. Scheffler earned his first victory of 2024 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, then added titles at THE PLAYERS Championship, the Masters Tournament, the RBC Heritage, the Memorial Tournament and the Travelers Championship. To open the year in Palmer's name and reach Palmer's mark by June carried its own quiet symmetry.
This run belonged to a player already familiar with the summit. Scheffler had reached World No.1 in March 2022 after the WGC-Dell Match Play, then won his first Masters weeks later. A second green jacket followed in April 2024, by four strokes. What the Travelers added was not a first title but proof of a rhythm few in the modern game have sustained.
The season did not stop there. Scheffler took Olympic gold in Paris that August with a closing 62, and the year would eventually match the modern record. He capped the year by retaining the Hero World Challenge with a six-shot winning margin, claiming a record-equalling ninth title of 2024, though that event and the Olympics are not PGA Tour competitions. His seventh Tour win came later in the campaign.
The measure of the year sat in a single line. He had won 42.9% of the 21 tournaments he played in 2024.
Six wins before July. A name once held only by legends, now held again.
