Tag: FedEx Cup

Opinion: As LIV Golf hovers, PGA Tour and FedEx St. Jude Championship have something in common

As much as the PGA Tour wants the LIV Golf battle to be good vs. evil, it was never that straightforward.

MEMPHIS — Leave it to the father of a cancer survivor to put the melodrama consuming professional golf into perspective.

You remember Dakota Cunningham, right?

He was the Olive Branch kid who had Jim Nantz eating out of the palm of his hand on the CBS broadcast when the PGA Tour came to Memphis two years ago. Well, Dakota is 16 years old. He’s playing on the junior golf circuit. The UT-Martin golf coach (NAME)came out to a tournament not that long ago to watch him play.

College golf appears to be in his future, a remarkable feat considering he only got passionate about the sport when he couldn’t play soccer anymore upon being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2017.

So Steve Cunningham was standing there on the edge of the putting green at the new Overton Park 9 on Monday afternoon, watching his son and four other St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patients get pointers from PGA Tour star Collin Morikawa, and reflecting on how important this all had been.

Dakota’s connection with St. Jude and the tournament now known as the FedEx St. Jude Championship has given him access to elite golfers like Morikawa and Justin Thomas and – here’s where Steve paused a beat – Bryson DeChambeau.

DeChambeau, of course, is one of the marquee defectors to the LIV Golf series, the Saudi-funded alternative that the PGA Tour is treating as an existential threat. It’s to the point that Steve Cunningham wasn’t even sure if he could utter this next part out loud.

“I know his name is probably a bad word right now, but when Dakota reaches out to Bryson on Instagram, he responds,” Steve explained, “and he doesn’t have to do that.”

As much as the PGA Tour wants this to be good vs. evil, it was never that straightforward. This is mostly rich guys turning their back on other rich guys in the pursuit of getting even more rich. But chasing the almighty dollar can’t take away what Phil Mickelson, or Dustin Johnson, or Brooks Koepka, or even DeChambeau, have done for St. Jude and this tournament over the years.

All it does is take them away from Memphis. All it does is make you wonder if the PGA Tour knows what it’s doing. All it does is make you worry.

The Tour is returning to Memphis for the 65th year in a row in a more vulnerable position than it ever has been before. It badly miscalculated the viability of LIV Golf. Worst of all, it doesn’t seem willing to admit that yet.

This controversy could very well reach a head at TPC Southwind this week. There are three golfers – three LIV defectors – requesting a temporary injunction in order to play in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. A California federal court is set to hear the case Tuesday afternoon.

“I definitely was surprised to see some guys actually suing us,” said Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer. “It’s a topic of discussion, for sure.”

Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford could be out on the course for a practice round Wednesday, and the implications of their presence is already all anyone can talk about heading into this event. The Tour is arguing these golfers can’t break membership rules and then demand their way back in, can’t have their cake and eat it too.

The real problem, though, is that there probably isn’t enough cake. The sport can’t actually go on like it has the past few months for the long haul.

Contrary to what the golf establishment will have you believe, it’s in everyone’s best interest if the PGA Tour and LIV work out an arrangement that allows both to co-exist. Frankly, it’s in the best interest of Memphis. This is a PGA Tour town, given its history here and the amount of money FedEx has invested in it.

But LIV isn’t going away so long as the Saudis pour money into it, which means this isn’t about winning for the Tour as much as it’s about survival.

See, St. Jude and the PGA Tour have something else in common this week, something beyond this event.

They can’t lose their fight.

St. Jude’s mission is to one day eradicate pediatric cancer, to come up with a cure so that every child is like the five former patients who played a little golf with Morikawa on Monday. But you can’t thrive if you’re not alive, if you don’t survive, if there aren’t people who give that life meaning.

People like Dakota and DeChambeau.

As everyone else followed Morikawa to another green Monday, Dakota stayed back on his own practicing flop shots and chips away from the cameras. He swung over and over again, his future indelibly altered by a sport, a tournament, a hospital and, yes, a controversial golfer his father wasn’t sure he should mention.

The sooner the PGA Tour embraces that perspective, the better.

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Three storylines to watch at PGA Tour’s regular-season finale, the 2022 Wyndham Championship

The regular season ends this week.

If the 2022 Wyndham Championship is anything like last year’s event, the fans in North Carolina are in for quite a treat.

Kevin Kisner made a four-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to end a six-man playoff at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro last year to claim his fourth PGA Tour title and defeat Branden Grace, Roger Sloan, Adam Scott, Si Woo Kim and Kevin Na. It was just the third time in Tour history and first time since 2001 that a tournament was decided in a six-man playoff.

The 38-year-old Kisner is back to defend his title in the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season before the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs next week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. The race is on, not only for the playoffs, but to earn Presidents Cup points for the upcoming matches against Trevor Immelman and the International squad at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 19-25.

Here are three storylines to follow at the 2022 Wyndham Championship, the final regular-season event on the PGA Tour schedule.

Wyndham Championship: Tee times | Best bets | PGA Tour Live on ESPN+

Exclusive: Here are the details on PGA Tour changes that will see fewer players keep status, add lucrative events

Under the new system, players outside the top 70 will compete in a series of domestic Tour events during the fall.

CROMWELL, Conn. — The PGA Tour is planning some radical changes in the face of an effort by the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series to poach its top players. The moves include a significant reduction in the number of members who are fully exempt each season and the addition of a lucrative three-stop series of international events for top performers. And all of that means more changes to the oft-tweaked FedEx Cup.

Under the current system governing the FedEx Cup, the top 125 finishers in the season-long points race qualified for the first playoff event, with the top 70 in the standings progressing to the second event and, finally, the top 30 making the elite Tour Championship, where the winner receives $18 million from a $75 million bonus pool.

Four sources have confirmed to Golfweek the details of some imminent major changes. Starting at the end of the 2022-2023 season, only the top 70 players in FedEx Cup points will qualify for the first playoff tournament, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The top 50 in the standings will move onward to the BMW Championship one week later, with the traditional top 30 players progressing on to the Tour Championship at East Lake.

In addition, the 50 players who qualify for the BWW Championship will also earn berths in a lucrative three-event series to be held overseas in the fall of 2023. Those events are expected to be staged in Asia, Europe and the Middle East in consecutive weeks with purses of at least $20 million each.

Only the 70 players who earn a berth in the playoffs will secure their playing privileges for the following season, which will begin in January 2024, when the PGA Tour moves away from the current wrap-around season and returns to one based on the calendar year. “The rest jockey in the fall series events,” said one industry source familiar with the details.

Under the new system, players who finish outside the top 70 and fail to qualify for the playoffs will compete in a series of domestic Tour events during the Fall that will determine their status and priority for the following season. The intent of the changes is to bestow greater reward on top performers on the PGA Tour, many of whom have been approached by LIV Golf with guaranteed offers, and reduce the number of members who can retain playing status despite unimpressive results.

Details of the plan were presented to the Tour’s board Tuesday night in Connecticut. A PGA Tour spokesperson declined to confirm the details of the planned changes to Golfweek.

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Meet Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, ‘The Rev’, who went from worrying about his job to a huge payday in 3 weeks

Being a caddie carries as much job security as a tightrope artist. You’re always one bad step from a disaster.

How does a guy go from worrying about losing his job to cashing the biggest check of his life, all within a three-week period?

By becoming a PGA Tour caddie.

Just ask Jupiter, Florida, resident Matt Minister. This job is not for the faint of heart.

Minister – nicknamed “the Rev” because of his last name – is used to going through highs and lows. That goes with the territory when you’ve been a Tour caddie for two decades.

But nothing could prepare Minister for the craziness of the last three weeks, which finished on a high note Sunday when his boss, Patrick Cantlay, won the Tour Championship. It was Cantlay’s second consecutive victory and earned him the $15 million bonus for winning the FedExCup title.

Normally, a caddie receives 10 percent of the check when a player wins. Minister wasn’t getting into specifics Tuesday – “Patrick and I have an arrangement and I’ll keep that between us” – but it’s safe to say Minister made more money the last month than many people earn in their lifetime.

“Never in my wildest dreams,” Minister said Tuesday, when asked to describe the events. “I knew Patrick was playing well … part of it hasn’t set in yet.”

But before the celebration came the concern: The 47-year-old Minister tested positive for COVID-19 just as the PGA Tour’s regular season was ending last month. He was sick for 13 days, prompting Cantlay to bring in Tiger Woods’ caddie, Joe LaCava, for the first playoff event.

Being a caddie carries as much job security as a tightrope artist. You’re always one bad step from a disaster. And LaCava is one of the best caddies.

“In this job, you hold on as tight as you can,” Minister said. “You want the job. Any week you’re missing out, strange things have happened.

“I wanted to work that week, but Patrick told me to stay home. He wanted me to get better.”

Minister watched as Cantlay finished 11th at The Northern Trust. Minister arrived at Caves Valley – site of the BMW Championship – the same day as the final round of the rain-delayed Northern Trust ended. He had a message for his boss after he walked the course.

“You’re going to love these greens,” Minister told Cantlay. “They’re just like Memorial’s (a tournament Cantlay has won twice) … fast and lots of slopes.”

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Scouting BMW Championship course

You think a caddie doesn’t know his player? Cantlay set a PGA Tour record for most strokes gained putting at Caves Valley – almost 15 shots on the field – and that didn’t include a bunch of putts he made in his mesmerizing six-hole playoff victory over Bryson DeChambeau.

Cantlay continued his torrid play last week when he made more clutch putts at East Lake to beat Jon Rahm by a shot at the Tour Championship. It was the sixth victory for the Cantlay-Minister duo and obviously quieted any job concerns.

“My wife Julie and I were talking yesterday, and she said this was the craziest month of my life,” Minister said.

Then again, it’s a crazy job. A quick recap of Minister’s career:

• After playing golf at Ohio State, Minister moved to South Florida in 1998 to play the Golden Bear Tour. After making the cut in 14 of 15 events – and breaking even – Minister switched to caddying on the PGA Tour for former college teammate Chris Smith.
• Minister’s career languished to the point where in 2006 he was working as a club caddie at the McArthur Club in Hobe Sound. He ran into McArthur co-founder Nick Price, who recognized him as Smith’s former caddie and asked him what he was doing there. Price was about to join the PGA Tour Champions, so he asked Minister to caddie for him and they won four times together during the next five years.
• Minister started working for promising South Korean Sangmoon Bae in 2012, and they won a pair of tournaments together. But that job ended quickly when Bae had to fulfill his two-year military obligation.
• After bouncing around with a half-dozen players, Minister was supposed to work for Chris Kirk at Pebble Beach in 2017 – only to have Kirk cancel on him at the last minute.

As luck would have it, a representative for Cantlay called and asked Minister if he wanted to caddie for him. Cantlay had missed more than two years with a back injury and his former caddie had died in a car accident. Cantlay’s first week was Pebble Beach.

“I had already made travel plans and gotten a hotel in Pebble,” Minister said. “It made the decision a lot easier.”

It was almost like divine intervention for “the Rev.”

Caddie Matt Minister (left) celebrates with Patrick Cantlay on the 18th green after the first playoff hole during the final round of the Memorial Tournament golf tourney. (Photo by Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports)

What age difference?

Cantlay has won six PGA Tour events – and earned more than $35 million – with Minister as his caddie. Despite their 18-year age difference, they mesh together well – sometimes Cantlay calls him “Dad.”

“Matt does such a great job making everything easy for me,” Cantlay said. “We have a great relationship on and off the golf course. I know I can always depend on him.”

Minister’s crazy month isn’t over. In two weeks, he will get to caddie in his first Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. At almost 50.

“I get butterflies just thinking about it,” Minister said. “People have told me how wild those Friday morning matches will be.”

Can’t be as wild as the last month.

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Happy 15th birthday, FedEx Cup. Here’s a primer heading into the weekend.

The Tour Championship on Sunday at East Lake Golf Club will wrap up 15 years of the FedEx Cup.

The final round of the Tour Championship on Sunday at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta will wrap up 15 years of the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour’s season-long points race that began in 2007.

Regardless of format, the number of events and points structure, the goal has been the same: a season-long points race, culminating in a playoff series in which the players who have performed the best during a PGA Tour season come together for one final huge payday.

The FedEx Cup has been criticized as redundancy of golf’s major championships, World Golf Championships and The Players with a points system too complicated for fans to understand — as if NASCAR fans have ever cared about that.

The PGA Tour will counter with FedEx lasting 15 years as a title sponsor, and under contract through 2027, and more than 98 percent of the eligible players competing over the balance of the competition.

This year, only one player, No. 8 Louis Oosthuizen, chose not to enter the Northern Trust. The only player missing from the top-70 that advanced to the BMW Championship was Patrick Reed, who was hospitalized with pneumonia.

That means the attendance rate was .991.

The series has had multiple incarnations. It started with three playoff events that pared the final 30 players on the points list to the Tour Championship. The points systems have been a work in progress, with the Tour adjusting it for more volatility and movement during the playoffs or to more weight given the regular season.

Until 2019, there was the possibility that the winner of the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup champion could be different players, and so it was 10 times. But beginning with the 2018-19 season, the Tour adopted the format of the points leader entering the Tour Championship to begin the week 10-under par, the second-place player 8-under, the third-place player 7-under and so on, with the bottom five players of the top-30 starting the week even par.

The winner of the Tour Championship is also the FedEx Cup champion, with Rory McIlroy (2019) and Dustin Johnson (2020) the first two to win under that format.

It’s possible for one of those players between Nos. 26-30 to win the Tour Championship. But it would take an extraordinary week at East Lake, with an extraordinary collapse by multiple players ahead of them.

The top-30 in Atlanta this week have also earned it, perhaps more than any time in the past 15 years. That’s because the FedEx Cup schedule included six majors and 48 tournaments because of events that were re-scheduled to the fall of 2020 due to the pandemic.

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Here is a primer for this weekend and a history of the FedEx Cup through its first 15 years:

How are points awarded?

The winner of regular-season PGA Tour events earns 500 points. Winners of World Golf Championship get 550 points. Winners of the four majors and The Players Championship get 600. Events held the same week as majors or WGCs are worth 300 points. Points through the rest of the field are adjusted accordingly. Players have to make the cut to earn points.

During the two FedEx Cup playoffs, the winners get 2,000 points. The initial field of 125 is knocked down to the top-70 for the BMW Championship, then to the top-30 for East Lake. When there were four events, the field was pared from 125 to 90.

Once the 30 players for the Tour Championship are decided, points are erased and the players are assigned scores in relation to par, or “starting strokes” to begin the first round at East Lake.

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What did that look like this week?

• Patrick Cantlay 10-under
• Tony Finau 8-under
• Bryson DeChambeau 7-under
• Jon Rahm 6-under
• Cameron Smith 5-under
• Justin Thomas, Harris English, Abraham Ancer, Jordan Spieth, Sam Burns 4-under
• Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, Viktor Hovland, Louis Oosthuizen, Dustin Johnson 3-under.
• Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na, Brooks Koepka 2-under.
• Cory Conners, Hideki Matsuyama, Stewart Cink, Joaquin Niemann, Scottie Scheffler 1-under.
• Daniel Berger, Erik van Rooyen, Sergio Garcia, Billy Horschel, Patrick Reed even par.

Major bennies

Regardless of what the last-place player in the Tour Championship shoots in the no-cut tournament, he’s already qualified for next year’s major championships and The Players and is guaranteed $395,000 for just turning in a valid scorecard for four rounds.

The FedEx Cup champion earns $15 million, which matches the total purse of The Players Championship. That’s right. $15 million. Which also is more than the combined career earnings of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Lee Trevino.

But consider also that D.J. LeMahieu is making $15 million for hitting .264 (as of Aug. 29) for the Yankees this season. So, it’s all relative.

About that $15 million

What to do with $15 million? Cameron Smith wasn’t sure. But if you’re a die-hard golf fan, here’s what you could buy with $15 million:

• Around 375,000 dozen Titleist Pro-V1 golf balls, at a retail of $39.95.

• Need a new driver? You could buy 30,000 of them at the top rate of $500 each.

• With $15 million, you could take more than 2,000 friends to the 2022 Masters, with weekly badges purchased for the current price quoted on secondary markets.

• Bobby Jones golf shirts are among the top of the line, usually selling for around $130. The FedEx Cup haul could keep you looking good but you’re gonna need a bigger closet, for 115,385 of them.

• Take your friends to the Masters – all 2,276 of them, according to the most recent Stub Hub price for 2022 Masters badges for the competitive rounds.

• You could also buy a golf course, or four or five. According to a 2018 Links Magazine survey of 114 golf courses listed by the Leisure Investment Properties Group, the average public golf course could be had for $3.1 million.

Who shows up in the playoffs?

Dustin Johnson has won more FedEx Cup playoff events than anyone, capturing The Northern Trust and the BMW Championship twice each, the Barclays once and the Tour Championship once for six titles. Rory McIlroy has won five and Tiger Woods four.

Other multiple winners have been Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Camilo Villegas, Billy Horschel, Justin Thomas, Steve Stricker, Jason Day, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh with two each.

However, let’s talk dollars. McIlroy is the all-time leading money winner in FedEx Cup events at $41,724,157, followed by Johnson ($40,444,641) and Woods ($39,042,804). Players among the top-10 in careers FedEx Cup earnings who played this week at East Lake are McIlroy, Johnson, Thomas, Spieth and Horschel.

If we’re talking attendance records, six players have qualified for the playoffs every year since the FedEx Cup began: Mickelson, Matt Kuchar of St. Simons Island, Ga., Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Snedeker and Charley Hoffman.

Double-dippers

Only three players won the regular-season points race and then followed up by winning the FedEx Cup, Woods in 2007 and 2009 and Jordan Spieth in 2015. Woods has won the most regular-season points titles with five but probably should get a pass for 2008 when he was unable to compete in the playoffs due to leg surgery.

The lowest a regular-season champion finished in the final standings was Ernie Els in 2010 and Nick Watney in 2011, who both finished ninth in the final standings.

Horschel’s sprint to the top

The biggest jump anyone made in playoffs was Billy Horschel of Ponte Vedra Beach in 2014. He was 69th in the regular-season standings, then missed the cut in the first playoff event to drop to 82nd.

Billy Horschel of Ponte Vedra Beach won the FedEx Cup in 2014 after a late sprint from 82nd on the points list entering the final three playoff events.
But he then tied for second and won the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup.

The next biggest jump was McIlroy going from 36th entering the playoffs to the 2016 FedEx Cup title.

Garry Smits is a writer for the Florida Times-Union, part of the USA Today Network.

Tiger Woods shares epic Tour Championship highlight video while wishing the field good luck

Tiger has a highlight or two from his time playing the Tour Championship.

Tiger Woods may not be teeing it up this week in Atlanta, but that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about the PGA Tour’s season finale.

The 82-time winner on Tour took to Twitter on Wednesday to wish luck to the 30 players competing in this week’s Tour Championship, the final of three events in the Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup Playoffs. In true Tiger fashion, he also had to remind everyone just how well he’s played in the event.

Accompanying the tweet is a 58-second video that shows highlights from his win in 2007 – where he carded a front-nine 28 – and his win in 2018, including when Larry Fitzgerald stopped a media scrum to watch Woods make an eagle on his phone.

Woods has three Tour Championship wins, but only two at East Lake in 2007 and 2018. His first win at the event came in 1998 in his second year on Tour at Champions Golf Club in Houston. East Lake has been the tournament’s exclusive host since 2004, with several courses hosting between 1987 and 1996. From 1997-2004, the Tour Championship alternated between Champions and East Lake.

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Tour Championship: Who’s in and who’s out of the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale

Check out the notable players to play their way in and out of the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup Playoffs finale in Atlanta.

After a wild season that’s featured countless playoffs, legendary wins and improbable comebacks, it all comes down to this.

The PGA Tour season will wrap this week with the Tour Championship, the final event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. After 69 of the season’s best players competed at the BMW Championship – won by Patrick Cantlay in a six-hole playoff over Bryson DeChambeau – each wound up finishing under par, the first time that’s happened in FedEx Cup history.

Two players made massive leaps and played their way into the final field of 30 at East Lake, while two players also played their way out. Check out the notable names to barely made, and miss, the FedEx Cup finale.

BMW Championship: Leaderboard | Prize money | Winner’s bag

How much money each PGA Tour player earned at the BMW Championship

It pays to play well on the PGA Tour, especially during the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

It pays to pay well on the PGA Tour, folks. Especially during a FedEx Cup Playoffs event. Just ask this week’s winner, Patrick Cantlay.

The 29-year-old earned his fifth PGA Tour on Sunday at the 2021 BMW Championship, the penultimate event of the season and second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, by defeating Bryson DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland.

The win earned Cantlay the top-prize of $1,710,000 while DeChambeau will take home $1,026,000.

Check out how much money each player earned this week at the BMW Championship, as well as the top 18 money winners of all time.

BMW Championship: Leaderboard | Get to know Caves Valley

Position Player Score Earnings
1 Patrick Cantlay -27 $1,710,000
2 Bryson DeChambeau -27 $1,026,000
3 Sung-jae Im -23 $646,000
4 Rory McIlroy -22 $456,000
5 Erik Van Rooyen -21 $380,000
T6 Sergio Garcia -20 $330,125
T6 Dustin Johnson -20 $330,125
8 Sam Burns -19 $294,500
T9 Abraham Ancer -18 $256,500
T9 Jon Rahm -18 $256,500
T9 Alexander Noren -18 $256,500
T12 K.H. Lee -17 $199,500
T12 Webb Simpson -17 $199,500
T12 Harold Varner III -17 $199,500
T15 Tony Finau -16 $166,250
T15 Jason Kokrak -16 $166,250
T17 Viktor Hovland -15 $133,000
T17 Kevin Na -15 $133,000
T17 Charl Schwartzel -15 $133,000
T17 Hudson Swafford -15 $133,000
T17 Aaron Wise -15 $133,000
T22 Corey Conners -14 $95,000
T22 Brooks Koepka -14 $95,000
T22 Justin Thomas -14 $95,000
T22 Scottie Scheffler -14 $95,000
T26 Daniel Berger -13 $73,150
T26 Harris English -13 $73,150
T26 Shane Lowry -13 $73,150
T29 Cameron Davis -12 $61,750
T29 Brian Harman -12 $61,750
T29 Si Woo Kim -12 $61,750
T29 Sebastian Munoz -12 $61,750
T29 Joaquin Niemann -12 $61,750
T34 Patton Kizzire -11 $50,113
T34 Cameron Smith -11 $50,113
T34 Jordan Spieth -11 $50,113
T34 Lee Westwood -11 $50,113
T38 Paul Casey -10 $38,000
T38 Stewart Cink -10 $38,000
T38 Lucas Glover -10 $38,000
T38 Charley Hoffman -10 $38,000
T38 Matt Jones -10 $38,000
T38 Louis Oosthuizen -10 $38,000
T38 Jhonattan Vegas -10 $38,000
T38 Harry Higgs -10 $38,000
T46 Emiliano Grillo -9 $28,500
T46 Hideki Matsuyama -9 $28,500
48 Chris Kirk -8 $26,030
T49 Xander Schauffele -7 $24,320
T49 Tom Hoge -7 $24,320
51 Marc Leishman -6 $23,370
T52 Branden Grace -5 $22,154
T52 Billy Horschel -5 $22,154
T52 Mackenzie Hughes -5 $22,154
T52 Kevin Streelman -5 $22,154
T52 Cameron Tringale -5 $22,154
T57 Talor Gooch -4 $21,280
T57 Ryan Palmer -4 $21,280
T57 Keith Mitchell -4 $21,280
T60 Keegan Bradley -3 $20,710
T60 Russell Henley -3 $20,710
T60 Robert Streb -3 $20,710
T63 Max Homa -2 $20,140
T63 Maverick McNealy -2 $20,140
T63 Collin Morikawa -2 $20,140
T66 Cameron Champ -1 $19,475
T66 Kevin Kisner -1 $19,475
T66 Phil Mickelson -1 $19,475
T66 Carlos Ortiz -1 $19,475

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Patrick Cantlay takes down Bryson DeChambeau in six-hole playoff to win wild BMW Championship

Cantlay now has five wins on Tour and will begin next week’s Tour Championship with a head start.

Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay put on an incredible performance in the penultimate event of the PGA Tour season on Sunday.

Each looking for his third win of the season, the potential future Ryder Cup teammates with contrasting styles went shot-for-shot down the stretch at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, with Cantlay coming out on top after a six-hole playoff.

Cantlay now has five wins to his name on the PGA Tour and will begin next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta with a head start at 10 under. The victory is his first FedEx Cup Playoff win, but his third win via a playoff.

BMW Championship: Leaderboard | Get to know Caves Valley

Tied with three holes to play at 27 under, DeChambeau flexed in celebration after he made birdie on the 16th to take a one-up lead at 28 under. After both players made bogey on the par-3 17th, Cantlay rolled in a birdie putt on the 72nd hole from 21 feet to tie DeChambeau, who missed his putt for the win from 12 feet.

On the fifth playoff hole, the par-3 17th, both players went pin-seeking. DeChambeau was first, leaving just six feet to put the pressure on Cantlay, who responded with a dart inside three feet. Both made birdie and each hit fantastic approach shots into the green on the 18th. Cantlay made his birdie while DeChambeau missed low to end the marathon day.

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After launching his 3-wood toward the New Jersey Turnpike, a refreshed Rory McIlroy used three new clubs to tie the BMW Championship lead

“It’s nice to get driver in your hand and be able to feel like you can let it fly a bit.”

OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Rory McIlroy seems to have found a good 3-wood.

And a second wind.

And a new putter and driver.

Three days after he tried to throw his 3-wood to the Jersey Turnpike in the final round of the Northern Trust, McIlroy used an old 3-wood he had in his garage to lace a shot 285 yards to 10 feet on the 16th hole and knocked in the putt for his first eagle in 516 holes in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, one of the many highlights during Thursday’s first round of the BMW Championship at soft, hot Caves Valley Golf Club.

And McIlroy looked to be on the energetic side after saying on Wednesday that he had played too much golf this season and was exhausted and looking for some time off. Now he’s looking to take the lead in the FedEx Cup race.

McIlroy shot an 8-under-par 64 to grab a share of the lead alongside world No. 1 Jon Rahm and Sam Burns. A shot back was Sergio Garcia. Two back were Abraham Ancer and Patrick Cantlay. Among those three back were Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Northern Trust winner, Tony Finau.

“I’ve went through playoff stretches before where you’re always in that lead group. You’re either one, two or three in the FedExCup, and that can sort of take its mental toll over the few weeks,” said McIlroy, who is 28th in the standings (only the top 30 advance). “Where now I’m in a position where I need to play well just to play next week. There is an element of free-wheeling, I guess.

BMW Championship: Leaderboard | Get to know Caves Valley

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“And the energy thing; I was super tired yesterday. But you get a good night’s sleep and you feel a little bit better the next day and you can go out and play well. Another good night’s sleep tonight and get up, get back out on the golf course, and try and do the same stuff that I did today.”

McIlroy spent hours on the driving range at Caves Valley trying to find a new 3-wood and a new driver (his old one was making the ball spin too much). He also switched out putters, going with a Spider model.

“I went home, I went down to Florida after Northern Trust on Monday night, went into the garage and rummaged through a few different things, got my old putter back out, got my old 3-wood, brought a few shafts out, tried different shafts in the driver, went to a new shaft in the driver, and it seemed to work out today,” McIlroy said. “It’s not as if I was driving the ball badly. Like I just had a driver I felt was spinning a little too much, so a couple of times last week into the wind I’d hit it and it would balloon up in the air and then if I wanted to try to hit a cut off the tee, I was not comfortable doing it because I felt like I was losing too much distance by hitting the cut. Getting a driver that just spins a little less makes it more comfortable for me to aim up the left side and peel it off if I want to.”

And this course lets the big dog eat, which McIlroy eats up.

“It lets you hit driver, first and foremost,” said McIlroy, who hit 13 of 14 fairways. “I think there’s a lot of courses we play nowadays where a lot of fairways pinch in at 300, 310 (yards). It doesn’t allow the long hitters to hit driver a lot; last week being a pretty good example of that. Whenever you get a big golf course like this that allows the big hitters to hit driver, that’s usually a big advantage.

“It’s nice to get driver in your hand and be able to feel like you can let it fly a bit.”

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