Christiaan Bezuidenhout carded a fine bogey-free six-under-par 64 on Sunday in the final round of the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship to get himself into a share of 23rd in the final Signature Event of the season.
With three birdies on each nine, Bezuidenhout moved to 12-under-par for the tournament, 10 strokes out of the play-off which gave Scottie Scheffler his sixth win of the season. It was an 11-place boost on the leaderboard for the top-ranked South African, although he was projected to drop four spots on the FedExCup rankings to 20th.
Scheffler bested Tom Kim of Korea on the first play-off hole to win after both carded 22-under 258 at TPC River Highlands. Scheffler is the quickest to accomplish six wins in a a season since Arnold PaImer in 1962. Three other players – Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Nick Price – have won at least six times in a season since 1983, but none have done it as fast as Scheffler.
“It was a great finish. This golf course produces a lot of those, you know, the exciting stuff coming down the stretch,” Scheffler said. “It was a lot of fun and I’m proud to be sitting here with the trophy.”
The pair was two shots clear of Tom Hoge of the United States, who closed with an eight-under-par 62, and Sungjae Im of Korea. Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau, Justin Thomas and Akshay Bhatia, all of the United States, finished in a share of fifth, a further two strokes back on 18-under-par.
