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Just one player can bump Scottie Scheffler for FedExCup No. 1 into TOUR Championship

Published

4 months ago

August 19, 2024

Scottie Scheffler described his fourth-place finish at the FedEx St. Jude Championship as a “good fight.” Xander Schauffele phrased his final-round 63 that led to a runner-up showing as a “head-down day.”

Matter-of-fact. Businesslike. Standard operating procedure for Scheffler and Schauffele, another high finish in a season full of them, at the first leg of the three-event FedExCup Playoffs.

“I felt like I could have done a few things better,” Scheffler said afterward, “but overall it was a solid week.”

The top-five finishes by the world’s top two players also solidified a FedExCup scenario: Schauffele is now the only player with a mathematical chance to pass Scottie Scheffler on the season-long race at next week’s BMW Championship, before the top 30 are seeded by Starting Strokes into the TOUR Championship.

On the strength of six PGA TOUR wins this season, Scheffler entered the FedExCup Playoffs with a 1,936-point edge on Schauffele, with Playoffs events awarding quadruple points (2,000 to the winner) compared to a Full-Field Event. Schauffele made up some ground at TPC Southwind, particularly in his closing 63 that gave him a puncher’s chance

It’s still a substantial deficit – Schauffele trails Scheffler by 1,495 points into next week’s BMW Championship. Only a win at Castle Pines would move him atop the FedExCup into the TOUR Championship at East Lake, which utilizes a Starting Strokes format (the FedExCup leader will start at 10 under, with No. 2 starting at 8 under). But it’s a chance, which is better than any other player can say amidst Scheffler’s generational season, in which he became the first player since Arnold Palmer in 1962 with six wins before July 1.