How Scottie Scheffler won in 2022
Scottie Scheffler made the championship match for the second straight year, and this time claimed the title with a 4-and-3 victory over 2019 champion Kevin Kisner. Scheffler, who in 2021 lost to Billy Horschel in the final, took over the No. 1 spot in the Official World Ranking with his third victory in five starts (and would add the Masters title in his next start). After the players halved the first hole with birdies, Scheffler went 3-up with a par on the second hole and birdies on the fourth and sixth. Still 3-up through 11, a key moment came on the par-5 12th hole where Scheffler chunked a pitch shot into a bunker but holed out from there for a birdie to halve the hole. Kisner bogeyed the 14th to make it a 4-up advantage, and Scheffler closed out the match on the next hole. In the morning semi-finals, Scheffler defeated 2017 champion Dustin Johnson, 2 and 1. Scheffler withstood a rally from Johnson, who won four straight holes to cut a 5-up margin to 1-up before Scheffler won the 16th with a birdie.
- In the round of 16, Scheffler avenged his loss in the previous year’s final by taking a 1-up victory over Horschel.
- In pool play, Scheffler defeated Ian Poulter, lost to Tommy Fleetwood and defeated Matt Fitzpatrick. He then beat Fitzpatrick on the sixth hole of a playoff after both finished with 2-1-0 records.
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- Scottie Scheffler joined Kevin Kisner as the only players to win the event in the following year after finishing runner-up. Kisner was runner-up in 2018 and won in 2019.
- Scheffler was the sixth player to reach the championship match in consecutive years, joining Tiger Woods (2003, 04), Geoff Ogilvy (2006, 07), Paul Casey (2009, 10), Hunter Mahan (2012, 13) and Kisner (2018, 19).
- Scheffler was the youngest winner in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play history (25 years, 9 months, 6 days); previously it was Rory McIlroy in 2015 (25 years, 11 months, 29 days).
- Runner-up Kisner reached the championship match for the third time in four years. The only other player to do so was Ogilvy (won in 2006, 09, runner-up in 2007).
- Scheffler was the third consecutive winner of the event to emerge from group play in a playoff. He defeated Matt Fitzpatrick in a meeting of players who would go on to win majors in 2022—Scheffler at the Masters and Fitzpatrick at the U.S. Open.