Image courtesy PGA Tour/X.
By Rahul Banerji
Scottie Scheffler capped his season with a second FedEx Cup title courtesy of a comfortable victory at the Tour Championship for his 22nd PGA Tour win in Atlanta on Sunday.
In doing so, he also went past Tiger Woods on golf’s all-time money-earner’s list and ended a year bookended by wins, with a third title coming at the St Jude Championship earlier in the month.
Scheffler closed out his run at East Lake with a 4 under par 66 on a day no one else from the leading six even broke par, and then had to wait for the last two groups in the clubhouse to seal his three-shot victory over Viktor Hovland.
The world number one made up a three-shot deficit to overnight leader Hovland in just four holes and then pulled away to total 16 under 264 (65-67-66-66).
Behind him, the Norwegian finished on 13 under 267 (64-66-65-72) with tournament debutant Ryan Gerard (65-65-66-72) taking a merited third place on 12 under 268.
“When you’re coming down the stretch of a tournament and you’re tied or one shot back, it’s different than when you’re adding it up at the end and there’s starting strokes and all that stuff,” said Scheffler later.
Major feat
“I think having a real tournament to finish the year, where I am the winner and the lowest score at East Lake, feels like a bit more of an accomplishment.”
A few more of Scheffler’s accomplishments for the season courtesy of pgatour.com included:
- Scoring average: First
- Official money: First
- Strokes Gained: Total: First
- Strokes Gained: Tee to Green: First
- Top fives: Most
- Top 10s: Most
- Top 25s: Most
- Scrambling: First
- Putting > 25 feet: First
- Birdie average: First
- Bogey avoidance: First
- Greens in regulation percentage: First
- Round 4 scoring average: First
To mark all this, and crossing Tiger’s career mark of $120,999,166 to stand on $130,390,661 having added $10 million from the $40 million prize purse at Atlanta, Scheffler celebrated with a beer.
“There was an open bar inside and I’m like, ‘All right, I’m grabbing a beer.’ It tasted great,” Scheffler said.
“I don’t really drink often. My wife and manager were like, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen you have a beer in a long time.’ Well, season’s over now. I’m going to have a beer. Well-earned beer.
“To come in this year maybe not winning the tournaments that I could have won throughout the regular season, to come in and win two out of three playoff events, is definitely a nice way to finish off the season.
“That was my motto going into the playoffs. Maybe in years I’ve underperformed in the postseason, and maybe this is a year I’ll perform better than I have in the regular season.”
Levelling scores
Scheffler won for the third time this year to match Chris Gotterup, Matt Fitzpatrick and US Open champion Wyndham Clark for most titles in 2026. Sunday’s result also helped him erase memories of losing to Hovland in a playoff earlier in the season.
The Norwegian could only manage a single birdie to finish second and earn $5 million after seeing three putts lip out in four holes, two for birdie and one for par, but was generous of his praise for the winner.
“He’s just good, and he played good every day. I could have shot 66 easily as well today. Just didn’t have it. …
“It wasn’t like anybody else really played all that great in contention, and that’s what you see — a lot of guys just gagging and throwing up. And that’s where he just kind of stays in it and shoots a nice score. That gets the job done.”
According to event notes shared by the PGA Tour, Scheffler’s second Atlanta win helped him join Tiger Woods (2007, 2009) and McIlroy (2016, 2019, 2022) as the only players with multiple FedEx Cup titles.
Indian-American Akshay Bhatia (65-69-71-68) took a share of 18th place on 7 under 273, a gain of four spots and also sealed a spot on the US team for the upcoming President’s Cup against the Internationals as a captain’s pick.
The top six of 12 members on both teams were automatic selections based on world ranking points after the Atlanta season-ender.
Also read: Hovland drives to one-shot advantage at Tour Championship
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