Why Scottie Scheffler’s 54-hole lead is frightening for the chasing pack at The Open

The World No.1 leads by four shots as he chases Sunday glory at The Open… and recent records show he doesn’t give up 54-hole leads.

Saturday at Portrush saw Scottie Scheffler doing Scottie Scheffler things. Leading by two as he got his weekend underway, six straight pars made for an unspectacular start as others stepped on the accelerator on moving day.

Playing partner Matt Fitzpatrick eagled the 2nd to tie things up at the top as Haotong Li got within one. But when Fitzpatrick birdied the par-5 7th to get to -11, it was time for the World No.1 to strike. Eagle to lead by one. Next hole? Birdie to lead by two. Then came a rare mistake – a standard approach to the par-4 11th sailing into thick rough.

“The worst lie I’ve ever seen,” Open Radio declared. A chance for the field? No. Fitzpatrick made bogey as the American miraculously muscled his ball to 10 feet and holed the par putt. From potential disaster to a three-shot lead in the blink of an eye.

Four more pars, including good saves at 14 and 15, followed before he made light work of ‘Calamity’ with a birdie to extend the lead to four. He grazed the edge for another at 17, tapping in for a simple par, before calmly two-putting the 18th to sign for a bogey-free 68 that extended his lead to four.

Off the back of three straight rounds in the 60s, Scheffler heads into Sunday as resounding favourite, just as he did when he had a three-shot lead over Alex Noren at the PGA Championship in May.

Back then, the lack of major experience in the chasing pack made it seem a foregone conclusion, but a charging Jon Rahm and an uncharacteristically poor front nine from the normally composed Scheffler made it more stressful than it could have been, but, just as he did today, he found that extra gear when he needed it.

The Open Leaderboard: Top 10

Sunday at Portrush sets up very differently to the final 18 at Quail Hollow. Once again, Scheffler has a big lead and plays alongside a man with little experience at the top end of a major in Haotong Li. But unlike Quail, he’ll be only too aware of Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy, and Xander Schauffele, with eight majors between them, gunning for him fast starts in the groups ahead. And while Tyrrell Hatton, Harris English and Chris Gotterup are yet to get a major over the line, all are in prime form and more than capable of making a run.

In Li, it’s easy to think that Scheffler doesn’t have the strongest adversary. He hadn’t played a major since 2022, has missed the cut in his last three Opens, and failed to make the weekend at the Scottish Open before heading here. But the World No.110 knows how to win golf tournaments and has four DP World Tour titles, including this year’s Qatar Masters, to his name. He also has a T3 finish in the 2017 Open at Birkdale and has twice experienced playing in the final group at a major – on Saturdays at Birkdale and the 2020 PGA Championship. The sight of his name might not faze Scheffler, but it would be remiss of him to dismiss the 29-year-old who is aiming to become China’s first men’s major champion. It would also be remiss of anyone to dismiss the impact Li’s slow pace of play might have on the best player in the world’s rhythm.

“I’m actually quite looking forward to it,” Li said of playing in the final group on a major Sunday for the first time.

His next comment was less encouraging if we’re looking for someone who can chase down Scheffler.

“Four shots behind, kind of like play for second, especially playing [with the] world No. 1. I just try to play my best out there and hopefully make something happen.”

The key thing here, though, is that Scheffler holds the cards and even his peers know it. He leads. And when he leads, he wins.

Mostly.

After an incredible 2024, he made a slow start to 2025, having missed the start of the season with injury. But when he draped the Green Jacket on the shoulders of a certain Northern Irishman at Augusta, it seemed to flick a switch. Since McIlroy sealed the career Grand Slam, the man who has won the Masters twice has seemingly wanted to remind his counterpart and the world why he’s comfortably the game’s top-ranked player.

His eight-shot win at the CJ Byron Nelson Cup was the seventh straight 54-hole lead he’d converted and he did so by shooting a closing eight-under par. Wins at the PGA Championship and Memorial followed – two more 54-hole leads turned into wins to extend that streak to nine.

Heading to Portrush, he was on a run of 59 successive made cuts with 13 wins in that spell, including two majors, an Olympic gold medal, and victories at the Players Championship, The Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

With a win at The Open, Scottie Scheffler would…

• Be the 31st player with 4 or more major championship victories
• The 9th player to win the Masters Tournament, PGA Championship and Open Championship in their career (second this season: Rory McIlroy)
• The 2nd straight player to win the PGA Championship and Open Championship in the same season: Xander Schauffele
• 12th consecutive first-time Open Championship winner (Ernie Els in 2012 became the most recent multiple winner of The Open)

Another cut, safely secured, he can extend the wins to 14 tomorrow and join a list of just eight other men to win four majors. Scheffler will have achieved that in just 25 starts and, barring disaster, it’ll be 10 top-10s in his last 12 majors – including all four this season. He’ll also have won The Open little more than four years after his first round of links golf in the UK.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I like being out here competing,” he said after his round when asked why he’s such a good closer. “This is why we work so hard is to have opportunities like this, and I’m excited for the challenge of tomorrow.

“Winning major championships is not an easy task, and I’ve put myself in a good position. Going into tomorrow, I’m going to step up there on the first tee and I’m going to be trying to get the ball in the fairway, and when I get to the second shot, I’m going to be trying to get that ball on the green. There’s not really too much else going on.”

When you hear such calm, it makes the task of chasing down Scheffler seem even more daunting, but if the chasing pack are looking for hope, I have found some. While he’s never given up a lead when holding it through three rounds in a Major, he had lost more than he’d converted on the PGA Tour until the end of 2023 and still holds the record for blowing the biggest lead heading into a final round. That happened at the 2022 Tour Championship when he gave up a six-shot advantage to lose to McIlroy. Coincidentally, that’s the same advantage he has over the home favorite, here. Just saying.

And while Scheffler has never blown a major lead during the final round, there are plenty of instances of big comebacks at The Open.

What is in the American’s favor is that only three players who have led by four shots or more through 54 holes have failed to win The Open – Macdonald Smith in 1925 (five shots), Jean van de Velde in 1999 (five shots), and Adam Scott in 2012 (five shots).

One man who doesn’t expect to see a shock tomorrow is Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay. “I never thought in my lifetime I’d see a player as close to Tiger as this man currently is,” Phil Mickelson’s former bagman said during Saturday’s coverage.

A fellow caddie backed him up.

“His distance control is the best I’ve ever seen,” says Billy Foster, who was on the bag for Collin Morikawa in Scheffler’s group through the first two rounds. Foster has worked for some of the best players ever to have picked up a club. Seve, Tiger, Westwood, Fitzpatrick, to name just a few.

“Different class and simply brilliant,” the Englishman says when asked if he’d said anything to Scheffler after their round on Friday.

It’s hard to disagree with either of the legendary loopers. It feels more likely we’ll see Scheffler better the six-shot victory Shane Lowry achieved here in 2019 than watch him crumble.

But all that will be on the 29-year-old’s mind when he wakes tomorrow will be getting the job done yet again. And if he’s not the man lifting the Claret Jug when the sun sets in Northern Ireland on Sunday, whoever has taken him down will deserve a bottle of the finest to fill it with.

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