What a huge boost for European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald with five of his key Roman warriors inside the top-11 on the FedEx Cup standings post the BMW Championship, and now heading to this week’s PGA Tour season-decider at East Lake in Atlanta.
Norwegian superstar golfer Viktor Hovland jumped five places to No.2 on the FedEx Cup points table after shooting a stunning course record 61 to capture the BMW Championship by five shots with a 17-under victory tally on the Olympia Fields course. The win is Hovland’s fifth on the Tour.
Rory McIlroy remains at No. 3 following his BMW Championship fourth place finish while Spaniard and Masters champion Jon Rahm struggled at Olympia Fields to finish T31st, losing his No. 1 spot to American Scottie Scheffler in dropping to No. 3 ahead of Atlanta.
Then there’s England’s Matt Fitzpatrick sharing second place at 15-under par which didn’t see him come away with the BMW Championship trophy, but his great week assured him entry into the Tour Championship.
Fitzpatrick entered the week No. 40 in the FedEx Cup points standings and vaulted to No. 10 by tying for second behind Hovland.
“I feel like my game is definitely in better shape than it was, and yeah, looking forward to getting to next week and working on it some more, and hopefully still progressing,” said Fitzpatrick.
Tommy Fleetwood is also headed to East Lake after signing for a closing 71, a result that saw him lose his 10th place FedEx Cup standing to Fitzpatrick.
And there is more good news for Donald as the last man into this week’s elite field of 30 was Austria’s Sepp Straka, and the first man out was Sahith Theegala.
Both Straka and Theegala bogeyed their final holes on Sunday, but it came at a greater cost to Theegala, who began the week No. 31 in points and failed to surpass any of his peers.
Straka tied for 37th place at two-over to drop from 24th to 30th in the points standings. Theegala tied for 15th place on Sunday with a round of 67 and 6-under total.
And the Austrian-born Straka knows just how important it could be that he’s now headed to Atlanta.
“I think he knows my game fairly well. I think these weeks matter a lot, just to see who’s in form, who’s not. But overall I don’t think that one week is going to make a huge difference in the mind of Donald, who many will bet that Straka will be one of Donald’s wildcard picks.
“Obviously if I went and won East Lake, that would probably change things, but yeah, I think Luke got a pretty good idea of what my game is like,” said Straka.
The full Tour Championship field of 30 and each player’s starting scores are below:
1. Scottie Scheffler, 10 under
2. Viktor Hovland, 8 under
3. Rory McIlroy, 7 under
4. Jon Rahm, 6 under
5. Lucas Glover, 5 under
6. Max Homa, 4 under
7. Patrick Cantlay, 4 under
8. Brian Harman, 4 under
9. Wyndham Clark, 4 under
10. Matt Fitzpatrick, 4 under
11. Tommy Fleetwood, 3 under
12. Russell Henley, 3 under
13. Keegan Bradley, 3 under
14. Rickie Fowler, 3 under
15. Xander Schauffele, 3 under
16. Tom Kim, 2 under
17. Sungjae Im, 2 under
18. Tony Finau, 2 under
19. Corey Conners, 2 under
20. Si Woo Kim, 2 under
21. Taylor Moore, 1 under
22. Nick Taylor, 1 under
23. Adam Schenk, 1 under
24. Collin Morikawa, 1 under
25. Jason Day, 1 under
26. Sam Burns, even par
27. Emiliano Grillo, even par
28. Tyrrell Hatton, even par
29. Jordan Spieth, even par
30. Sepp Straka, even par
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