Sahith Theegala playing with house money at WM Phoenix Open

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Sahith Theegala may capture his first PGA TOUR title at the WM Phoenix Open on Sunday. Or, he may not. Either way, he figures he’s winning, if you don’t get too hung up on the definition of the word.

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Theegala, 24, shot a 2-under 69 and leads by one over Brooks Koepka (68) and two over Patrick Cantlay (68), Xander Schauffele (69), Scottie Scheffler (62) and Talor Gooch (67). It’s heady stuff for a guy who could be watching the tournament from home; Theegala is trying to become the first sponsor’s exemption to win on the PGA TOUR since Martin Laird in 2020.

That wasn’t long ago, of course. It was the year Theegala was consensus college Player of the Year at Pepperdine.

“I'm still not fully over the fact that I'm playing with these guys, right?” he said. “Like I think that's going to be a learning process that I need to get better with, because this is probably the strongest field I've played in so far this year and I was definitely a little bit star struck.

“Even on the first tee,” he continued, “I'm like, Man, I'm playing with Xander and Brooks? Like, are you kidding me? Like what an opportunity though, just to see them up close and they're great dudes and, yeah, pretty crazy. But definitely these last couple rounds and last couple days really gave me a lot of confidence to tell me that, hey, I do belong up here.”

Getting over that mental hurdle is paramount for players with designs on winning at the highest level, and two guys have just shown how it’s done. Luke List broke through for his first win at the Farmers Insurance Open two weeks ago, and Tom Hoge did the same at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last week. Is it Theegala’s turn?

Plenty of chasers will have a lot to say about that. Hoge himself is in contention, 11 under par and three back after a third-round 67. All told a dozen players will go into Sunday within four shots of the lead. Scheffler, who like Theegala has never won, will be one of them. He’s just two off the pace after shooting 9-under 62, the round of the day.

Asked what’s more difficult, winning a TOUR event, shooting 59, or defeating world No. 1 Jon Rahm in Ryder Cup singles, Scheffler, who has accomplished two of the three, didn’t hesitate.

“Well, apparently winning a tournament might be the hardest,” he said with a laugh.

Schauffele hasn’t won on TOUR in three years, although capturing the Olympic gold medal last summer certainly took some doing. He’s playing with a friend on the bag this week after his regular caddie tested positive for Covid, and loves TPC Scottsdale. He had one hand on the trophy here last year but shot even par in the last round to finish T2.

Cantlay, Schauffele’s Ryder Cup partner, has been on a torrid run since winning the FedExCup last year. Then there’s Koepka, who has won twice here, has four majors to his name, and might be the most dangerous player on the leaderboard.

“I would like to have the lead,” he said. “But look, I'm playing solid, so just go out and go play a good round tomorrow and see what happens. Just need to keep putting it the way I did. I feel confident, I like where my game's at and we'll see.

“Just be within a couple on the back nine,” Koepka added.

Theegala likely figures there’s nothing the final round could throw at him that he didn’t already see Saturday, when he often found himself in the desert directing fan traffic. He double-bogeyed the par-4 second hole, after which his caddie, Carl Smith, gave him a pep talk. A couple times, he said, fans picked up his ball. He called the par-4 11th hole, where he wound up way right off the tee and wound up making what he deemed a deserving bogey, an outright fiasco.

“What a day,” Theegala said. “So many ups and downs. I mean it was wild.”

As for the prospect of winning, he’s thinking big picture.

“I'm just happy to be here,” he said. “I'm just happy to be in the tournament. I found out 13 days ago. So also putting that in the back of my mind that, hey, anything I do is a bonus and it's a free roll. I think I have already been pretty blessed.”