Scottie Scheffler claims dominant victory at FedEx St. Jude Championship as Tommy Fleetwood fades on tough back nine

Scottie Scheffler produced a clinical performance at TPC Southwind on his way to sealing an eight-shot victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

Scheffler took a two-shot lead heading into Sunday's final round, but as his challengers faltered in the boiling Memphis heat, the 30-year-old four-time major winner held his cool as he surgically dismantled the course to post a final-round score of 66 to finish on 17 under.

Scheffler is now the third-youngest player to reach 21 PGA Tour wins, behind Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, but the American could have reached that milestone much earlier, having placed as a runner-up on five occasions on the PGA Tour this season.

"It's not easy to win out here," Scheffler said. "I felt like the year that I've had kind of shows how difficult it is.

"We have a lot of talented guys, and I played some really solid golf over the course of this year, but I hadn't played much great golf.

"I have had my close calls and lost a couple play-offs. It was nice coming into a day during which I had the lead and was able to hold that lead and really kind of build on it as the round went on.

"I felt like a week like this was coming. I felt like I was on repeat all year just being like: 'Hey, I'm playing solid. I'm close'.

"It feels good to be answering some different questions at the end of this week."

Scheffler's only blemish during his final round came on the third hole, where the American chipped out of a bunker but struck a sprinkler head. Much to his dismay, his ball ricochetted into a water hazard, with Scheffler going on to post a bogey.

Unperturbed by the incident, he hit back two holes later, making birdies on holes five and six, before adding three more on his back nine to finish at four under for the day.

"Going into today I just wanted to do my best and try and execute," Scheffler said. "Third hole I hit a good shot out of the bunker and it hit a sprinkler head and went into the water. I'm like: 'When is this going to stop happening?' But I did a good job of staying in it and bouncing back from that and I got to relax coming down the stretch."

Si Woo Kim finished as the solo runner-up at nine under par, while a bogey on the 18th would see Sam Burns drop back to tied-third with Alex Noren.

"I knew he was going to put a solid round together," Burns said on Scheffler. "Honestly it was going to be really difficult, what did Scottie finish, at 17 under?

"I would have had to play pretty much a perfect round of golf to have a chance today, and I didn't come close to that. He played exactly how I expected him to."

Defending FedExCup champion Tommy Fleetwood toiled, mixing two bogeys with two birdies to go level par through his front nine. The Englishman would ultimately fall back to six-under and tied for seventh on the leaderboard after making four bogeys on his back nine.