Scottie Scheffler’s Clutch Finish Seals BMW Championship Win at Caves Valley

Scottie Scheffler knew what to do when the ball was in the rough. With a swipe of a club, the dimpled sphere plopped onto the 17th green and kept rolling downhill toward the hole cut just a few feet from the water.

As the ball made its final revolution and dropped in, the crowd at Caves Valley Golf Club went into a frenzy. They saw exactly what they wanted—an unforgettable memory in Baltimore, delivered by the world’s best men’s golfer in a clutch moment.

Scheffler made an 82-foot chip-in for birdie on the tough par-three, giving him a two-shot lead with one hole to go over Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre in the BMW Championship at the hilly, hot Caves Valley club in Owings Mills.

“It was a chip we practiced,” Scheffler said. “I knew how fast it was, and basically it was just trying to get it on the green. It was kind of a bowl pin back there to where everything funnels towards it. It came out how we wanted, then it started breaking and it started looking better and better. It was definitely nice to see that one go in.”

Afterward, as MacIntyre prepared to attempt a chip in from the rough to keep pace, chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” broke out among the dedicated golf fans, alluding to the upcoming Ryder Cup where Scheffler and the U.S. will play against Team Europe, of which MacIntyre is a part.

MacIntyre didn’t convert, and Scheffler parred the long par-4 18th to close a round of 67. He finished the tournament at 15-under to take the title while looking like the closest thing golf has seen to Tiger Woods.

With the victory, the 18th of his career, the 29-year-old Scheffler became the first player since Woods to win at least five times on the PGA Tour in consecutive years.

MacIntyre started the day with a four-shot edge, but by the end of the fifth hole—with three bogeys—he lost it. Meanwhile, Scheffler was steadier and took the lead with a birdie on the par-three 7th. Things seemed inevitable from there.

“Bob gave me a couple gifts early in the round,” Scheffler said. “I went from being four back to we were standing on the third tee, and I’m only one back, and all of a sudden, it’s game on now. No more cushy lead. It’s time to go get it.”

He did, though it wasn’t easy on what he said was a firm course, especially on the greens late in the day. “There gets to be a few spike marks, and they got really fast out there,” Scheffler said. “There’s a lot of slope. They were pretty challenging.”

After three-putting the 14th hole, Scheffler’s lead, which had grown, fell back to one. Then, his tee shot landed in a bunker right off the fairway. MacIntyre hit his second shot to about seven feet, then Scheffler bettered him with an 8-iron that rolled closer to the hole.

That set the stage for more drama and the second largest comeback win of Scheffler’s career.

Then came a trophy presentation, celebration with his family, many photos (with Gov. Wes Moore, BMW representatives, Caves Valley chairman Steve Fader, and perhaps the most photographed baby of all time, Scheffler’s son, Bennett), and a press conference as a thunderstorm arrived.

Despite everything, the tall Texan looked composed, apart from the perspiration on his Nike clothes.

He came, saw, and conquered.

In the first two rounds, Scheffler and another golf superstar, Rory McIlroy, played together with crowds five and six rows deep. It resembled the BMW Championship at Caves Valley four years ago, when a larger, rowdier crowd followed Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay as they battled for the title, ultimately decided in a six-hole playoff won by Cantlay.

After walking tens of thousands of steps up and down the Caves Valley hills in uncomfortable heat on Saturday, Scheffler was asked to assess his third round of 67. “I was definitely quite warm,” he deadpanned, much like the several one-liners he delivered in a cameo in the recently debuted Adam Sandler movie Happy Gilmore 2.

A day later on Sunday, after sweating for four-plus hours all over again, Scheffler authored a win for Baltimore to enjoy.

A Meaningful Hole-in-One for Akshay Bhatia

Until Scheffler’s chip-in, the tournament’s highlight was Akshay Bhatia’s hole-in-one at the 17th hole on Saturday afternoon.

(I was next to the 8th green, watching Cantlay and Shane Lowry play. When I heard echoes from down a hill and through the trees, I knew something impressive had happened elsewhere.)

You will notice that Bhatia’s caddie, John Limanti, looked more excited than Bhatia. He pointed to the BMW iX M70 electric car parked to the left of the tee box.

If a player made an ace on the 17th hole during the tournament, they would win that car.

Limanti was really excited, as a replay from the NBC broadcast showed, because he thought he might be getting it as a gift from his boss, Bhatia. Meanwhile, Bhatia was processing what had just happened.

“My caddie is pointing at the car, and I don’t even know what to do,” Bhatia said. “I couldn’t feel my body. Even going to 18 tee was pretty nuts, how much adrenaline I had.”

About 30 minutes later, after a four-under round and feeling back in his body, he explained: “It was a perfect 5-iron.” The skinny, glasses-wearing left-hander hit a draw into a left-to-right wind across the downhill par-three with water right, a bunker left (that Scheffler hit into on Sunday), and temporary grandstands back and left of the green.

“That’s a hole where you’re trying to hit it from the front of the green to back of the green,” Bhatia said. “I told myself, ‘Just don’t be afraid to hit it. Execute it.’ Because it’s easy to bail out there. And when that golf ball goes in, it was the craziest thing in the world.”

It was the sixth hole-in-one in the 23-year-old Northern California native’s life, but his first on the PGA Tour. He also needed a good result to advance in the Top 30 of the FedEx Cup playoffs to qualify for next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. Making up two shots on one hole helped, and when it was all over Sunday night, Bhatia was in the tour’s final event.

He said it’s hard to beat his first hole-in-one, when he was 11 with a 7-wood at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina. But he acknowledged Saturday’s ace was his most “meaningful” in a competitive sense. For his family, too. His sister could use the car.

“I was going to give it to my caddie, obviously, but my older sister has two kids. One of her kids is disabled, and their car is not in great working form. I figured they need it a lot more than I do,” he said. “Even though I don’t get to see them much, they were excited and I’m very excited. It makes me feel good about that decision.”

The hole-in-one has also already benefited the Evans Scholars caddie program, which receives all BMW Championship proceeds and has sent more than 4,000 caddies to college. A full, four-year scholarship worth $125,000 will be awarded to an Evans Scholar in Bhatia’s name early next year.

It is uncertain who will receive the scholarship, but someone will be pleased. Bhatia will too. “It warms my heart that a golf shot I hit can help a kid get a full scholarship,” he said.

Maryland’s Denny McCarthy Feels the Hometown Love, But Comes Up Short

As he walked from the fan-lined 11th green on Saturday afternoon, carrying an even par score, someone yelled at Denny McCarthy from the top of the stands: “Maryland’s finest. Finish strong.” Another screamed: “Hey Denny, Wahoowa,” referencing his alma mater, the University of Virginia. On the trail to the 12th tee, a woman goaded McCarthy into slapping her hand, and she was thrilled with the acknowledgment.

The 32-year-old McCarthy—Maryland’s own from Takoma Park in Montgomery County—had home region support, which he appreciated, but it wasn’t enough to power him to the top of the leaderboard.

McCarthy finished 3-over par and tied for 28th. “It’s always fun to play in front of a home crowd,” he said Sunday after his final round. “It wasn’t the result I was looking for this week.”

McCarthy grinded through the first two-and-a-half rounds before unraveling on the back nine of Saturday’s third round. He double bogeyed the 15th and tripled the 16th by taking four shots to land his ball safely on the elevated green. “I shot myself in the foot,” he said.

On the 16th, with his second shot on the par-five in the rough short left of the green, his first three attempts failed to hold the putting surface. The first rolled back toward him into the fairway, and the second and third landed, then tumbled back toward his feet. He finally chipped one past the hole and putted in for an 8.

On Saturday night, he thought about it as he and his wife, Samantha, headed from their hotel, The Sagamore Pendry in Fells Point, for dinner across the street at Thames Street Oyster House.

By the time they finished the meal, McCarthy felt a little better about the earlier course events. “We had a bunch of good things, so that put me in a better mood,” he said.

But he wasn’t completely over making a “mess of 15 and 16” hours earlier.

He still wasn’t even after he chipped in from the fairway for eagle on the same 16th hole during a 2-under final round. “It was nice to just take one shot and put it in the hole from there,” he said. “It would have been useful yesterday.”

For the fourth straight year, McCarthy’s season will end with the BMW Championship. His performance wasn’t enough to place in the Top 30 in the FedEx Cup playoffs and make the Tour Championship.

“Kind of disappointing to end up in this kind of spot for the third or fourth year in a row,” McCarthy said, but he relished the chance to have some hometown support.

“It was a really good experience. Anytime you can play in front of a home crowd, it’s a lot of fun. It was really hot this week, and the support I had, the amount of people I had coming out and sticking it out with me in the heat, I don’t know if I would come out and walk four rounds in this heat and watch someone play golf, so the amount of people that came out to do that for me was really special.”