The PGA Tour season, which began in Kapalua in January, ends this week in Atlanta.
The Tour Championship is once again the finale of the three-tournament FedEx Cup playoffs, with the field whittled down from 70 to 50 and finally 30 players. This week, $100 million is on the line, with the winner taking home a whopping $25 million. The money in professional golf is gushing these days, but that's still a number that will draw the attention of the best players in the world.
Scottie Scheffler enters first on the points list and will start at -10 in the Starting Strokes format – and if that sounds familiar, it is. Scheffler has entered the event as the points leader three years in a row, but he has failed to bring home the top prize the last two times, as Rory McIlroy took it in 2022 (his third FedEx Cup) and Viktor Hovland won last year. Both are back this year, as are previous FedEx Cup winners Patrick Cantlay (2021), Xander Schauffele (2017) and Billy Horschel (2014).
Xander Schauffele, who has had the lowest gross score or a tie (meaning the best score regardless of starting strokes) in two of the last four years, will begin the second week behind Scheffler. Hideki Matsuyama, the winner of the first playoff event at FedEx St. Jude, is three back and Keegan Bradley – the Cinderella story who just made it into the BMW Championship and then won it— is four metres behind. The players furthest behind are on the same level and have a lot of ground to make up to fight for the title.
East Lake Golf Club, the oldest golf course in Atlanta and the place where Bobby Jones learned to play golf, has hosted the Tour Championship annually since 2004. The course has undergone extensive restoration and will look a little different on screens this year, particularly because many trees have been removed. The course is now a par 71 instead of 70 (the downhill 14th hole will now be a par 5) and is slightly longer at 7,490 yards.
Full field of participants in the Tour Championship
30 players
Åberg, Ludvig
An, Byeong-Hun
Bezuidenhout, Christiaan
Bhatia, Akshay
Bradley, Keegan
Brenner, Sam
Cantlay, Patrick
Clark, Wyndham
Finau, Tony
Fleetwood, Tommy
Henley, Russell
Hoge, Tom
Hoerschel, Billy
Hovland, Viktor
Im, Sungjae
Kirk, Chris
Schroeder, Thomas
MacIntyre, Robert
Matsuyama, Hideki
McIlroy, Rory
Morikawa, Collin
Pavon, Matthieu
Pendrith, Taylor
Rai, Aaron
Schauffele, Xander
Scheffler, Scottie
Scott, Adam
Straka, Sepp
Sahith, India
Thomas, Justin
