If there was ever a place for Scottie Scheffler to run away with a tournament and pick up his first win of the season, it’s at TPC Craig Ranch.
The top-ranked golfer in the world blew out the rest of the field this week to win The CJ Cup Byron Nelson, his hometown event, which marked his first victory of 2025. Scheffler, after entering the final round with a historic eight-shot lead, got to 31-under for the week after his final round 63. That gave him an eight-shot win in McKinney, Texas.
“This tournament means a lot to me,” Scheffler said on CBS while getting emotional holding his son. “It’s my first start as a pro, 11 years ago, I had my sister caddying for me … It feels like a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice for little moments like these. They’re pretty special.”
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Scheffler, who made his PGA Tour debut at the Byron Nelson in 2014 when he was a 17-year-old amateur, is now the first Dallas-area high school golfer to win the tournament since 2007. He’s the third person to go wire-to-wire at the event, too, and the first since Tom Watson pulled that off in 1980. Scheffler’s margin of victory is the largest in tournament history.
Scheffler opened the week with a 10-under 61, which he closed with back-to-back birdies after posting a 29 on his front nine. He then backed that round up with an 8-under 63 on Friday, which gave him a record six-shot lead at the midway point. He was bogey-free at that point, and was just one shot off the Tour’s 36-hole scoring record.
While Scheffler’s play slowed in the back half of the event, nobody came close to catching him. He fired a 5-under 66 on Saturday and made up for his first two bogeys of the tournament with a huge finish that included three birdies in his last five holes. That gave him an eight-shot lead, which was the largest 54-hole lead anywhere on Tour since 2011.
Sunday was then basically a formality. Scheffler rolled to the win without any issue whatsoever. He even pushed his lead to a ridiculous 10 shots very briefly at one point after he made an easy eagle at the par-5 ninth out of a fairway bunker.
Scheffler made three more birdies after that, and he bogeyed the par-3 17th after making a very relatable mistake trying to chip it back up onto the green, to close out his 62 and grab the win — which earned him a $1.782 million check. He had a shot at the Tour’s all-time scoring record on the 18th green, too, but he just barely missed his final putt and had to settle with a par. He’s now just the third golfer in Tour history, along with Justin Thomas and Ludvig Åberg, to shoot a 253.
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Erik van Rooyen finished alone in second at 23-under for the week. Sam Stevens jumped into third with his 7-under 64. Jordan Spieth shot a 9-under 62 on Sunday, which launched him up 19 spots on the leaderboard into fourth. It marked his lowest round of the season and his best finish of the year. He hasn’t won since the RBC Heritage in 2022.
“What he’s been doing is inspiring given — I mean, it wasn’t that long ago I was definitely better than him, and now I’m definitely not right now,” Spieth said of Scheffler. “I hate admitting that about anybody, but I just watched it in those first two rounds, and like, I’ve got to get better. It’s very inspiring.”
Scheffler won an incredible seven times on Tour last season, including at the Masters, The Players Championship and the season-ending Tour Championship. While he’s held onto the top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, Scheffler entered this week without a win in 2025. After a delayed start to the season following a hand procedure that stemmed from a cooking incident over Christmas, Scheffler has made every cut in nine starts and had five top-10 finishes before this week. His worst finish was actually a T25 run at the WM Phoenix Open. He finished T3 at the Genesis Invitational and in second at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, too.
But finally, after a bit of a rare break for him, Scheffler sealed the deal and earned what is now his 14th career Tour win.
