WILMINGTON, Del. – Patrick Cantlay drove off with the BMW Championship trophy again.
The 30-year-old Californian made birdie at the 17th hole at the south course at Wilmington Country Club on Sunday and held on for a one-stroke victory over Scott Stallings. Cantlay shot 2-under 69 for a 72-hole total of 14-under 268 and became the first player to successfully defend a FedEx Cup Playoffs event.
A year ago, Patrick Cantlay needed six extra holes at Caves Valley to claim the BMW title en route to winning the FedEx Cup. New course, but same result as Cantlay claimed his eighth PGA Tour title and second of the season.
Cantlay won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Xander Schauffele as his partner, but hadn’t won an individual title since going back-to-back at the BMW and Tour Championship last year. Scottie Scheffler, who tied for third, will start next week in the driver’s seat at 10 under with a two-stroke lead at the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup title will be on the line.
“This is the only week of the year where you actually get strokes on the field, but I think I’ll be best suited if I just ignore that and just go out there and play my game and do my best,” Scheffler said.
Cantlay will start in second place, two strokes back of Scheffler in the staggered-start leaderboard; no player has ever defended the FedEx Cup title.
“I’m in a really good spot,” Cantlay said. “It’ll be a little different type of a challenge this year, obviously, being two behind Scottie. He’s played a lot of great golf this year, so I expect the same. But it’s a golf course I really like, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Stallings, who closed in 69, was seeking his fourth PGA Tour title and first since the 2014 Farmers Insurance Open. He missed a 9-foot birdie putt at 18 that would have tied Cantlay.
“It did what exactly we thought it was going to do, it just did it behind the hole,” Stallings said.
But the 37-year-old Stallings, who started the week No. 47 in the points standings, did succeed in booking his first trip to the Tour Championship, which is reserved for the top 30 in the season-long FedEx Cup point standings, in his 12th year on Tour.
“That was my number one goal to start the year,” Stallings said. “To compete with the best players in the world and make it to East Lake was better late than never, I guess.”
Cantlay opened with a pair of 68s and then surged into the lead with a hole-out eagle at 14 and overcame missing some short putts on Saturday to shoot 65.
In the final round, he trailed Stallings by two strokes after making his second bogey of the day at No. 10, but he was rock-solid from there. He made three birdies on his way to the clubhouse, with birdies at Nos. 11, 14 and 17. The last of the bunch included a 351-yard drive that benefited from a good bounce as his blast landed short of the bunker, hopped over the sand, wangled its way through the first cut and into the fairway just 64 yards from the hole. From there, he wedged to 6 feet.
“Maybe one of the best breaks I’ve gotten coming down the stretch, and when you get a break like that you need to pay it off, and fortunately I did,” Cantlay said.
But after a wayward drive into a fairway bunker, Cantlay still needed one more trick up his sleeves to close out the win. He hit a big slice 8-iron from 158 yards, which found the green 47 feet away.
“It came off almost exactly how I would have pictured it, how I visualized it,” he said.
Two putts away from defending his title @BMWChamps. pic.twitter.com/PlNEWTECHx
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 21, 2022
In the tournament within the tournament to finish in the top 30 in the points and qualify for the FedEx Cup finale next week at the Tour Championship, K.H. Lee, who finished as the odd man out last year at No. 31, made birdie at the first four holes and shot 65 to jump from No. 35 at the start of the day to No. 26. Rookie Sahith Theegala made birdies on four of his final seven holes to shoot 68 and finish No. 28. Australia’s Adam Scott scrambled for par out of a greenside bunker at the last that kept him in the top 30 (No. 29) and prevented Ireland’s Shane Lowry to qualify for next week in Atlanta for the first time in his career. Aaron Wise squeaked in at No. 30 despite a final-round 73, 19 points ahead of Lowry.
“I guess that’s the beauty of the FedEx Cup Playoffs the way they are,” Scott said. “You can scratch it around a lot for the year and have a couple good weeks and get heavily rewarded by getting to East Lake and being in that top 30 and all the perks that come with it.”
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