Tour Championship

The Tour Championship isn't your normal PGA Tour stop, however. It holds the distinction as being the only tournament where the player who shoots the lowest ...

It’s one of the bigger events for us and because of that, you have to try your best to stay present and not get ahead of yourself.” “If I go out and shoot a good score tomorrow and Scottie and a lackluster day, he brings a lot of guys back in and anything can happen over 36 holes,” McIlroy said. “I was 4 over through three holes in Boston and won the Deutsche Bank a few years ago,” McIlroy said. One of those players was Rory McIlroy, whose round was alternately sizzling—rats, Roget says to change that to thermogenic!—and fizzling. “It’s a bit strange, so that’s why I talk about not looking at the leaderboards,” Scheffler said. But in this case, the world’s best player is on a roll and he already has only four players within seven shots thanks to his automatic 10-under-par starting point. For all its faults, the handicapped start is the best version so far, enabling viewers to quit caring about esoteric point totals and understand who’s leading and by how much. That doesn’t work because the PGA Tour doesn’t run any of the four major championships. The FedEx Cup season-long points race results in a unique—and uniquely uncomfortable—staggered start this week, the better to reflect which players have had better seasons. The flaw or the beauty in the staggered start rides with Scheffler, the No. Love ‘em or hate ‘em—bigger purses for smaller fields, mainly, and double the money-for-nothing Player Impact Program—the changes were necessary to stick a hot fork in rival LIV Golf’s direct-deposit program. Funny, that idea that seems less relevant now that there’s no longer a need to rig things to ensure that Tiger Woods (semi-retired) and Phil Mickelson (fully banished) are in contention going into the weekend for the tour’s season-ending, lollapalooza grand finale.