By DOUG FERGUSON
LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler started his season as though nothing had changed, running off four birdies in a six-hole stretch Sunday to blow past 18-year-old Blades Brown and the rest of the field. He closed with a 6-under 66 for a four-shot victory in The American Express.
Scheffler won for the 20th time on the PGA Tour — all in the last four years — to earn a lifetime membership. More indicative of his dominance in the game is winning nine of those 20 tournaments by four shots or more.
Scheffler has 20 wins and four majors before turning 30. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the only other players to have done that.
“Pretty wild,” Scheffler said. “It’s been a great start to my career. It’s been special. I try not to think about that stuff too much. I was just trying to do the things I needed to do to be prepared.”
The world’s No. 1 player shared the stage with Brown, who finished high school two weeks ago and played in a Korn Ferry Tour event in the Bahamas that finished Wednesday. He’s the first player to play eight straight days of PGA Tour-sanctioned competition.
Whether the fatigue caught up with him or simply the moment — he was trying to become the youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years — it ended quickly.
Brown was one shot behind 54-hole leader Si Woo Kim and one shot ahead of Scheffler heading to the tee at the par-3 fourth on the Stadium Course at PGA West. Five holes later, Brown and Kim both were five shots behind and Scheffler was putting it into overdrive.
Scheffler hit a baby 8-iron to 2 feet on the fourth for birdie and found the fairway on the par-5 fifth. Brown hit his tee shot into the water and had to drop in front of the tee boxes — he close to drop in the dormant Bermuda rough instead of the teeing ground — and then hit a poor wedge that led to double bogey.
Brown went 11 holes without a birdie and had to late bogeys that led to a 74. He fell from a tie for second to a tie for 18th, costing him a spot at Torrey Pines next week.
“Eight rounds I know sounds like a lot, but I was having a lot of fun,” he said. “You’re telling me I get to play in a PGA Tour event and to play with Scottie Scheffler and see him win it, that was insane.
“I got some things I got to sharpen up, and hopefully we see if we can do what Scottie’s doing.”
Jason Day closed with a 64 that moved him up 18 spots to a runner-up finish, along with Ryan Gerard (65), Matt McCarty (68) and Andrew Putnam (68).
Kim, who plays often with Scheffler at Royal Oaks in Dallas, also lost his way on one hole. He was two shots behind on the par-5 eighth when he took two shots to get out of a greenside bunker, chipped strong and made double bogey. He missed a 3-foot par putt on the next hole. Kim rallied with three birdies on the back nine to salvage a 72 and tie for sixth.
Scheffler never let up. He nearly holed a chip right of the par-5 11th for a tap-in birdie. He hit wedge into 2 feet on the next hole for a birdie and he headed to the 13th tee with a four-shot lead.
His only big blunder was when it didn’t matter, a tee shot into the water on the par-3 17th known as “Alcatraz,” and by then Scheffler had plenty of get-of-jail-free cards. He took double bogey to keep the margin from being greater against the strongest field The American Express has had in decades.
Scheffler now takes a week off before ending the West Coast with three straight events, starting with the Phoenix Open where this amazing run began four years ago. He won his first PGA Tour title in a playoff. It hasn’t been that close lately.
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