Scottie Scheffler’s march towards his first Claret Jug continued unimpeded Saturday as the three-time major champion moved ever-closer to his first win in The Open Championship. The world No. 1 shot a 4-under 67 to create further distance between himself and the field. He will go into Sunday’s final round at Royal Portrush with a four-stroke advantage over Haotong Li and a six-stroke margin over Rory McIlroy at his home nation’s course.
Scheffler has converted his last nine 54-hole leads into wins, and he looks primed for another runaway major victory Sunday in Northern Ireland. He’s made a habit out of eliminating Sunday drama in major conquests as his first Masters win came by three strokes (despite a four-putt on the 18th), his second green jacket was earned with a four-stroke margin, and he won his first Wanamaker Trophy at the PGA Championship earlier this year by five shots.
Whether that pattern will follow Sunday remains to be seen, but Scheffler will be a massive favorite to claim the Claret Jug. Should he do so, he will capture the third leg of the career grand slam in potentially dominant fashion with just a U.S. Open to go.
Recently having turned 29 years old, Scheffler is seeking to join a short list including Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — golfers who on the Masters, PGA Championship and Open before their 30th birthday.
There was some hope early in the round that weekend drama might get created as Matt Fitzpatrick tied Scheffler for the lead with an eagle on the 2nd hole. Scheffler dragged his feet to start the round, starting with six consecutive pars on a front nine that the rest of the field tore up, creating a bunched chase group behind him.
Leading the charge was McIlroy, who came out of the gate red-hot, making three birdies in his first four holes to move up the leaderboard and get the home crowd into a frenzy. But just as the tournament started to get interesting, Scheffler put a stop to any thoughts that he might slip back and leave the door open to the field.
A 380-yard drive on the par-5 7th left him just 206 yards in, and he stuffed a mid-iron to just outside 10 feet for eagle. He poured that putt in and backed it up with a birdie on the 8th to quickly dart out to a three-shot lead.
The back nine was much of the same as Scheffler made a couple rare miscues; however, each time he put himself in trouble, he calmly excavated himself from the thick rough and fescue and poured in long par putts to stay right on track.
With hope building from the rest of the leaders that Scheffler might stall out on the back and allow them to close the gap, he once again found some brilliance in the midst of a wobbly back nine. His lone birdie of the second side came on the 239-yard 16th, as he conquered the 7th hardest hole on the course with a cutting long iron that skipped up to 14 feet short of the pin.
It was his third straight day birdieing the hole known as Calamity Corner as he’s made Royal Portrush’s iconic hole the sight of his signature moments this week. Scheffler also completed his fourth bogey-free round at a major while separating himself from many of golf’s brightest stars.
Scheffler will be joined by Li in the final pairing on Sunday as Li has refused to fade away all week, but it will take something unbelievable for Li or anyone to catch the No. 1 golfer in the world. Scheffler does not generally come back to the field, and a round in the 60s feels like the bare minimum that he’ll produce Sunday on his way to putting both hands on the Claret Jug.
The chase group is headlined by McIlroy at 8 under, as he shot a spectacular 66 on Saturday that was one of the great rounds of his career given the stage and setting. The home crowd in Northern Ireland was begging for McIlroy to make a move on Moving Day and he obliged, but he’ll need to conjure up the course record 61 he shot as a 16-year-old amateur this Sunday if he’s going to reel in Scheffler and prevent the final round from being a coronation walk for the world No. 1.
2025 Open Championship leaderboard, Round 3
1. Scottie Scheffler (-14): There is a sense of inevitability when Scheffler is playing like this. There were some fantastic rounds of golf from the rest of the field on Saturday in gettable conditions, but the problem was that the course was gettable for Scottie, too. He didn’t take the bait on certain sucker pins and didn’t even take advantage of every gettable hole, but he did refuse to give anything back to the field.
Scheffler had two loose swings that, for most players, would’ve led to auto-bogeys: a jammed short iron on No. 11 that ended up in the shrubbery on a downslope above the green and a yanked tee shot into the thick fescue on No. 14. On the 11th, he calmly popped the ball up and onto the green, leaving a little under 10 feet for par. On the 14th, he took his medicine and chopped it out to the fairway, setting up a wedge to, again, just inside 10 feet. Both putts never left the center of the hole, and you could feel Fitzpatrick’s despair growing as each putt found the bottom of the cup.
There is no margin for error going up against Scheffler when he’s at this level, and while it’s possible all he can do on Sunday is shoot a 69 and post 16 under, he’ll require someone to threaten the course record to make him sweat.
2. Haotong Li (-10): All week people have been waiting for Li to fade away, but of the names that have been at the top of the leaderboard after each round, it’s only him, Scheffler and Fitzpatrick that have stayed there. Li, like Scheffler, continues to get around Royal Portrush by making as few mistakes as possible. He went bogey free on Thursday and has only combined for three across the middle two rounds, including a tough one on the 18th Saturday that took some air out of his sails. Still, he’s in line for another strong Open finish after a T3 back in 2017, and he’s proving himself on a big stage that his excellent play on the DP World Tour this year is for real.
3. Matt Fitzpatrick (-9): Fitzpatrick finally blinked in the final pairing, struggling on the back nine to shoot an even-par 71 on a day where birdies and eagles were flying around Royal Portrush. After a bogey on No. 1, he bounced back with a chip-in eagle on No. 2 to tie Scheffler for the lead. He got to 11 under as he made the turn, hanging just two off Scheffler’s lead. Everything unraveled on the second side as he made three bogeys and just one birdie to undo all of his progress on the front and fall five off the pace. It’s still been a terrific week for the Englishman, who is poised to register the best Open finish of his career. However, for someone who had high hopes of hanging with Scheffler, he is no longer in the final pairing and will now have to contend with the zoo surrounding McIlroy on Sunday.
T4. Rory McIlroy, Chris Gotterup, Harris English, Tyrrell Hatton (-8): If pressure and nerves can impact Scheffler, we’ll find out on Sunday because McIlroy will be in the game in front of him and the Northern Ireland crowd will send roars cascading back to Scottie every time Rory makes a birdie. He got off to a dream start on Saturday, and even with some mid-round hiccups, he delivered the kind of performance the fans were craving with his 66.
Joining McIlroy at 8 under, six off the lead, are a pair of unsurprising veterans and a man who is loving life on the links. English and Hatton were steady with 68s on Saturday, keeping themselves in the mix but leaving a few opportunities out there that could’ve given them the kind of round they needed to really feel in contention. Gotterup, meanwhile, continues his strong play after winning the Scottish Open with a 68 as well, and he’s making a late Ryder Cup push with his performance across the pond.
8. Xander Schauffele (-7): A great round of golf from Schauffele has him in position for his best major finish of the year. The reigning champion shot a 66 on Sunday to move up nine spots on the leaderboard, and while he’s likely too far back to keep the Claret Jug for another year, he’s building some positive momentum after a lost first half of the season.
T9. Russell Henley, Nicolai Højgaard, Robert MacIntyre, Rasmus Højgaard, Brian Harman (-6): Harman had a tough day and bowed out of contention with a 73, as the 2023 champ just couldn’t keep up the scoring pace on Saturday. Henley shot a 65 to tie for the low round of the day and moved himself into the top 10; he’s trying for consecutive top 10s at The Open for the first time in his career. MacIntyre couldn’t make the move he hoped on Saturday and showed his frustration, putting an all-world club spike on camera as he knew the conditions were ripe for a low round that he just could not produce. Then there are the Højgaard twins, who unfortunately just missed out on a final round pairing together because of when they finished, but they are in position for their best career major finishes as well.
