2024 Charles Schwab Challenge scores: Davis Riley outplays Scottie Scheffler to win first solo PGA Tour title

Riley finished at 14 under to win at Colonial, five shots ahead of Scheffler and Keegan Bradley

There are wins, there are big wins and there are "torched the No. 1 player in the world while he's at the peak of his powers and trying to win five of his last seven" victories. Davis Riley notched all three Sunday at the Charles Schwab Challenge as he shot a 70 while playing with Scottie Scheffler to win his first individual PGA Tour event and take down Keegan Bradley and Scheffler by five.

Sunday's final round was the most difficult the newly-renovated Colonial Country Club played all week. And while Riley's even-par 70 might not look great on paper, it was two shots better than the rest of this field. It also completed a week in which he gained well over four shots per round on the field, a terrific number that almost always results in a PGA Tour victory, as this one did.

It was not the final round we expected. Or I guess it was, but the characters played different roles than we thought. When the lead slipped to three for Riley early in the day, it felt like Scheffler could not be stopped en route to a victory that would been his fifth on the season and also would have tied Jason Day (2015), Jordan Spieth (2015) and Justin Thomas (2017) for most in a single PGA Tour season in the last 10 years.

Instead, after righting the ship, Riley earned a signature victory and, as a consolation prize, Scheffler will have to settle for a third consecutive top three finish at this event.

The former Alabama star, Riley, teamed up with Nick Hardy at last year's Zurich Classic to win that team event, but as far as individual events go, this one is a first. It's about as good as it could be drawn up, too. 

Whether it propels Riley to stardom remains to be seen, but it's certainly the type of victory that could do so. Colonial was playing fast, firm and difficult Sunday and Riley hung tough even though he had the best player in the world -- who is having one of the great seasons of the last 20 years -- on his hip the whole way. It only counts for one win in the record book, but to Riley I'm sure it will feel like much more than that.

T2. Scottie Scheffler (-9): You know things are going well when you fail to close the gap on a four-shot lead and instead notch your 10th top 10 in a row (including four victories) and people are wondering what happened. What happened on Sunday is that Scheffler ran into a difficult golf course and did not drive the ball very well, only hitting seven fairways in regulation and finishing outside the top 25 in strokes gained off the tee. For the week, Scheffler finished fifth in strokes gained from tee to green, which again it sounds hilarious that this would be considered lousy, but his measured events from tee to green across 72 holes this year have been almost laughably impressive. Grade: B+ 

• The Sentry: 1st 
• Phoenix Open: 1st 
• Genesis Invitational: 2nd 
• Arnold Palmer Invitational: 1st 
• Players Championship: 1st 
• Houston Open: 3rd 
• Masters: 1st 
• RBC Heritage: 1st 
• PGA Championship: 6th
• Charles Schwab Challenge: 5th

T3. Collin Morikawa (-8): The two-time major champion had an insane run of 3s on Saturday, closing out his third round with seven in a row. Just 3s all over the yard. More 3s than Kyrie and Luka. He's been playing some really quality golf since the Texas Open the week before the Masters even though, strangely, he's having the worst approach season of his career. Perhaps that straightens out over the next few months and he ends up closer to the 1.0 strokes gained on approach that he's normally at. If it does -- and evidence is mounting that it will given that he finished in the top 10 in approach play here and top 25 at the PGA -- he could stack a few victories at the end of this season. Grade: A-

T37. Jordan Spieth (+1): He continues to, as he once noted, drive the piss out of it. This week marked the ninth (!!) consecutive tournament in which he gained strokes off the tee (he finished 5th). The problem is that in six of those -- including this week -- he has struggled with approach play. The thing we always said about Spieth is that if he can find a fairway, he'll win a ton. The problem? He's finding as many fairways as he ever has and driving it better than he did from 2015-2017 when he won 10 times ... and he's not even sniffing victories. The reason? He's on pace for just his second negative strokes gained approach season since turning pro in 2013. Grade: C-

T37. Rickie Fowler (+1): This year has been bad for Fowler, who does not have a top 10 finish anywhere and until the RBC Heritage in April did not have a top 20 finish anywhere.  He played some of his best golf of the year on Saturday as he gained 5.5 strokes from tee to green, a stroke and a half more than Scheffler. The problem for Fowler was that he kicked some of those away on the greens and then gave back the rest with a 76 on Sunday. It was a disappointing finish for somebody trying to rekindle what he found last summer when he nearly won the U.S. Open and followed that with a victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Grade: C

Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter and Greg DuCharme recap the Charles Schwab Challenge and remember Grayson Murray. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

  

[May 26, 2024 at 4:15 pm ET · Kyle Porter]

Riley extends lead

I did not see this coming, but Davis Riley has not only kept his lead over Scottie Scheffler through the first nine holes, he's extended it. He goes out in even par while Scheffler drops two shots. 

[May 26, 2024 at 3:21 pm ET · Kyle Porter]

Course playing most difficult of the week

Colonial Country Club is more difficult on Sunday than it has been all week. It's currently about 2.2 shots over par, which is 2.7 shots more difficult than it was playing on Saturday. The primary culprit? The wind is howling right now in Ft. Worth and making distance control extremely difficult, even for the best players in the world.