Biggest 18-hole lead in tour history! LOL
Scheffler pads his edge at East Lake; Prez Cup Keegan: should he play or should he go?
Scottie Scheffler (right) turned his lead over Xander Schauffele from 2 to 7 (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
Even if you don’t like the system, you have to appreciate the PGA Tour shamelessly leaning into it’s starting strokes scoring system for the Tour Championship.
In its notes package from East Lake on Thursday is this real gem regarding Scottie Scheffler …
Becomes the first player to hold a lead of seven strokes or more after 18 holes of a TOUR event on record (1983-present)
As historical stats go — or should we say hysterical stats — that’s an all-timer. Even Scheffler will roll his eyes at that one considering he shot the best score (6-under 65) in Thursday’s first round on the new East Lake course by a single stroke over five players who shot 5-under 66 (Collin Morikawa, Adam Scott, Taylor Pendrith, Justin Thomas and Aaron Rai).
Scheffler leads those five players on the official Tour Championship leaderboard by 7, 8, 10, 11 and 11 strokes, respectively. It certainly helps when you set up the best golfer in the world at 10-under to start the tournament — which ranged from 2 to 10 strokes ahead of the remaining 29 players before the first shot was struck.
“I’m trying not to think much about the starting strokes stuff,” said Scheffler. “I think it’s still a bit weird with it not being a traditional event. But yeah, it was nice to get off to a good start in the first round, and I feel like I did a lot of things well today.”
The world No. 1 never had the best relationship with the old East Lake golf course or the new FedEx Cup starting strokes scoring system. But after his first round on the new East Lake golf course, his relationship with it and the now six-year-old handicapped scoring seems on the mend.
Despite being 0-for-2 when starting the Tour Championship at 10-under in 2022 and ’23, Scheffler isn’t willing to give any of his starting strokes back with $25 million on the hook for the winner.
“Absolutely not. I want every stroke that I can get this week,” he said. “I’ve experienced it on the other side, and I would much rather start a tournament with a lead than start it behind. It’s as simple as that.”
Scheffler’s 65 turned his opening two-stroke advantage as the top seed into a seven-stroke lead after the first round of the Tour Championship. So after one day, Scheffler sits at 16-under par — seven clear of No. 2 seed Xander Schauffele (whose 70 Thursday matched his worst score at East Lake) and Morikawa (who moved up to 9-under after starting the day tied for sixth).
There’s a five-way tie for fourth at 8-under with Scott (66), Sam Burns (67), Wyndham Clark (67), Keegan Bradley (69) and Hideki Matsuyama (70) jockeying for positions in the chase group behind Scheffler.
It didn’t start out as well as it finished for Scheffler, who after a bogey on the first hole watched his two-shot lead evaporate immediately when Schauffele birdied. But Scheffler took the lead back with a birdie on No. 3 and never let it slip away again as he made six more birdie in the last 12 holes to open up his big lead.
“I wasn’t thinking about the lead out there today,” Scheffler said. “There’s no reason to. It’s the first day of the tournament. It’s 72 holes. It’s a long time out there to be playing with a lead or whatever it is. I was just focused on staying in my own world and continuing to just try to execute.”
Schauffele, who has shot the low 72-hole score three times previously at East Lake, couldn’t keep up with Scheffler on Thursday and yielded the final pairing to Morikawa for round two.
“Kind of hit it in the rough a lot, and with brand new greens, I think I scored okay actually for how bad I hit it,” Schauffele said. “But yeah, overall it was kind of a meh day. Wasn’t something to be proud of or disgusted by.
“Scottie was almost in every fairway it looked like. It looked like he was going through wedge practice while he was out there. If you’re in the fairway you can attack this golf course.”
Rory McIlroy, who started the tournament tied for sixth at 4-under par and six behind Scheffler, got off to a slow start and was 1-over on the day through 13 holes before making birdies at 14, 16 and 18 to shoot 2-under 69 and sit T10. He’s 10 shots behind Scheffler now but only three shots out of second place – which is worth US 12.5 million.
McIlroy rallied from as many as seven strokes down early in the final round to Scheffler two years ago at the old East Lake and ended up winning his record third FedEx Cup.
“I’m happy with how I hung in there and had a good finish,” McIlroy said. “When I saw Scottie had gotten to 14 (under), I was like, oh, got to try to just hang on to the coattails a little bit. Still feel like I’ve got a chance, and it was nice to finish the way I did.”
Keegan Bradley and Jim Furyk go way back, but the young cap’n could learn from an old one (Chris Condon/PGA Tour)
Picking Keegan? Just say no
By Alex Miceli
Keegan Bradley shot a 2-under 69 in Thursday’s first round of the Tour Championship. It’s not much to write home about, but considering he wasn’t even in the mix two weeks ago, it’s nothing to sneeze at either.
Maybe what’s more interesting is how Bradley and the rest of the golf community have taken the possibility of Bradley playing on the U.S. Presidents Cup team.
The biggest question regarding the event, however, is … who cares? Next month, the U.S. will take on the International squad in the most one-sided biennial competition in sports.
Since its inaugural in 1994, the U.S. has won all but two of the Presidents Cups — and one of those was a tie in 2003.
Only the 1998 International team that the Australian great Peter Thomson captained won the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne.
Yes, there have been some close matches and barnburners that Team USA got challenged. But as time has gone on, interest has waned to the point where today’s golf and wider sporting public is pretty apathetic toward the Prez Cup.
We are only 14 matches in, but this PGA Tour-created event designed as a Ryder Cup wannabe has never come close to being a competition that transcends the sport.
Let’s face it, when the Presidents Cup is on television, most people will turn the channel to watch a college football game of their choosing or the NFL. Golf will not be a big part of sports audience.
This takes us back to Bradley. Team USA captain Jim Furyk went out on a limb, somewhat, asking Bradley last month to be one of his assistant captains in Canada. It was a gracious gesture since Bradley had not gained experience in captaining or vice-captaining an international team before. With his selection as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2025, learning the back-room stuff is essential and getting experience from a veteran like Furyk is highly beneficial.
But then Bradley had to go and win the BMW Championship last week, putting Furyk in a spot.
How can Furyk leave the world’s No. 11 player off the team? As the seventh-best American in the Official World Golf Ranking, the answer regarding Bradley’s worthiness as a captain’s pick would seem clear cut.
But is it?