Scottie Scheffler’s 2 superpowers clear as he took Memorial lead

It was eerily similar to two weeks ago. Scottie Scheffler was puttering along on a Saturday as the leaderboard jostled around him, almost as if the No. 1 player in the world was frozen in time while the course wreaked havoc on his competitors. Then, in a flash, Scheffler, just as he did at the 2025 PGA Championship, took hold of the Memorial Tournament with a finishing flurry that saw him make four birdies in his final five holes to shoot a bogey-free 68 and take a one-shot lead over Ben Griffin into Sunday.

The day started quietly for Scheffler, but if you paid close enough attention, his third-round exclamation point was a study in what makes Scheffler dominant. It was an exhibition of two of his superpowers: patience and control.

Scheffler opened the day three shots back of Griffin and Nick Taylor, who co-led after 36 holes at 7-under. He watched as Griffin quickly raced out to 10 under par. He saw Jordan Spieth yo-yo up and down the leaderboard. He observed as Taylor went through a double bogey-bogey-eagle-birdie stretch.

But through 13 holes, Scheffler made no noise. Good or bad. He had birdie looks from 15, 17, six, 20 and 15 feet. He made none of them. But he also made no mistakes. He made 13 pars to start his day. On a difficult Muirfield Village track that has battered the game’s best this week, Scheffler was more than happy to take his pars and move on. He saw Griffin get out in front of him by six, but knew there was too much golf left on a hellish course to press.

“I thought I was doing pretty good,” Scheffler said of his par streak. “Around this golf course, even par, I think, today would have been a pretty solid score. Like I said, I felt like I could have gotten a little bit more out of the round, but I felt like I was playing nice, and just a couple lips here and there would have changed the score a little bit, but overall, I felt like I was doing good stuff. I didn’t feel like I needed to change much.”

Patience. Patience. Patience.

Scheffler has lorded over men’s pro golf for more than three years now by playing an exacting style of golf that rarely sees him take himself out of the proceedings.

To beat Scottie Scheffler, you have to beat him. He won’t do it for you.

“The bummer for me is Scottie’s at [8 under] and he just — you know, you can’t count on him shooting even tomorrow,” Spieth, who will enter the final round five shots back of Scheffler, said Saturday after his round.”

With the winds gusting through Muirfield Village on Saturday, Scheffler, as he almost always does, displayed near superhuman control of his golf ball with his irons. When the rare squirrely shot came via the driver, Scheffler bounced back with a great shot to get back into position for par. He only hit eight of 14 fairways but found 13 of 18 greens in regulation and was a perfect five-for-five scrambling.

Of the 13 greens he hit in regulation, Scheffler’s average proximity to the hole was 18 feet. That’s an off day for him, but it underscores the control he exercises and his elite course-management ability. When facing a major-like test in Muirfield, Scheffler picks his way around, content to make pars and avoid danger, before striking when the opportunity presents itself. He rarely presses because he doesn’t feel the need to do so.

“What impresses me the most is his club face control is elite,” Spieth said of Scheffler. “It’s maybe the best there’s ever been as far as club face control. So his consistency is ridiculous. And then that just leads to his distance control being phenomenal. There’s a shot in and the worst he’s going to do is 15 feet, and most guys are going to hit a good there, but for him that was, like, the worst shot he probably — he’s probably, like, all right, yeah, I played that safe and cast a putt out and go to tomorrow.

“So it’s elite consistency and it’s because of his tempo and club face control that yields these kind of results.”

With Jack Nicklaus in the CBS broadcast booth as he approached the 18th green, Scheffler stuck his approach shot to 13 feet.

“That’s how I played the game,” Nicklaus remarked while discussing how Scheffler methodically attacks golf courses.

Minutes later, Scheffler rolled in the birdie putt to tie Griffin for the lead. Scheffler patiently waited another 20 minutes before he finally had the lead alone and control of the tournament.

Patience and control: The Scottie Scheffler Doctrine.