Davis Riley, Scottie Scheffler meet again at Charles Schwab Challenge

FORT WORTH, Texas – Overnight storms brought cool, dry air Sunday to the Charles Schwab Challenge, where two young players with a history will compete in the final group.

Golf’s most dominant player of the moment, Scottie Scheffler, shot 7-under 63 in the third round to earn a spot in Sunday’s final group. He’ll begin the round four shots behind leader Davis Riley.

Scheffler is No. 1 in both the FedExCup and the world ranking by wide margins after winning four of his previous six starts, including THE PLAYERS and Masters Tournament. Riley is ranked 250th and 151st in the FedExCup. He is seeking his first individual win on the PGA TOUR; he previously won the TOUR’s lone team event, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, with Nick Hardy in 2023.

They have vastly different resumes, but they also have a history.

Both players are 27 years old and played college golf at two of the country’s top programs. Scheffler went to Texas, while Riley played at rival Alabama. They also met in the final match of the 2013 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Martis Camp Club in Truckee, California. Scheffler won that match, 3 and 2, after Riley called a one-stroke penalty on himself after his ball moved as he addressed a birdie putt on the 16th hole. The resulting bogey ended the match.

“It took a lot of heart to do that,” Scheffler told the Reno Gazette-Journal that day.

It will take a lot of heart for either of them to prevail Sunday at Colonial Country Club. Riley will have to fend off one of the best closers in golf. Scheffler, a 10-time winner with four wins already this season, will have to erase a significant gap.

“Going into today I wanted to post a good number,” Scheffler said Saturday afternoon. “I didn't obviously know what the leaders were going to do, but just tried to do my best to not look too far ahead and continue to go out there and execute and try and give myself as many looks as possible.”

He has made plenty of birdies after shooting 2-over 72 on Thursday. Scheffler followed with rounds of 65-63 to vault from the cut line to contention. He has made 12 birdies and no bogeys in his previous 36 holes.

Riley opened the third round with five birdies through eight holes to build a seven-shot advantage. But he had trouble finding the narrow ribbons of fairway at Colonial, and he made bogey on the ninth and 10th.

“I turned to my caddie, I was like, ‘Let's reset, we're doing a lot of good things, let's just hit the reset button and get back in our process,’” Riley said. “And I feel like we did a good job of that and yeah, played, I guess it was 1-under on that last, I guess, seven or eight holes. So I was proud of the way – with the gusty winds and stuff like that, I was proud of the way I kind of handled it.”

He shot 66.

Their last pairing is scheduled to start at 12:50 p.m. local time under a blazing sun. Pierceson Coody and Hayden Buckley will start three strokes behind them, at 9 under. Stalwarts such as Keegan Bradley (6 under), Tony Finau (7 under) and Collin Morikawa (6 under) are within range at the par-70 Colonial, where low scores and hot streaks are legend.

One year ago, Riley and Scheffler reprised their junior amateur match at the last World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. Scheffler, the defending champion, dispatched Riley in the first match at Austin Country Club. He went on to finish fourth.

“I've known Scottie for a long time and played a lot of junior golf with him, college golf, and he obviously is playing some really good golf right now,” Riley said. “So he's going to come out swinging, but I'm looking forward to the challenge and it will be a fun day competing out there.”

Recalling their previous tussles, Riley added: “We’ll see if we can rewrite the script a little bit.”