In 2009 Phil Mickelson won the Tour Championship and Tiger Woods the FedExCup. Since then the same player has won both honours at East Lake. But not this year. On this occasion, Xander Schauffele ended his rookie season by winning the Tour Championship, and Justin Thomas ended his best season with the FedExCup and a $10 million bonus.
La victoria en The
Schauffele, a 23-year-old from San Diego who was worried about keeping his PGA Tour card just over three months ago, sneaked in a one-metre birdie putt on the final hole for a two-under 68 and one-shot victory over Thomas.
He thus became the first rookie to win the Tour Championship since it began in 1987. Although disappointed not to have won his sixth title of the season – which would have matched Woods’ achievement in 2009 – Thomas had ample reasons to celebrate, highlighted by his first major championship title, the 2017 U.S. PGA Championship, in August.
For Schauffele, on the other hand, it had been “a wild ride”. It began with a tie for fifth in his U.S. Open debut, and he followed that a month later by winning the Greenbrier Classic. He wouldn't even have been at the Tour Championship until he played his final six holes in six-under par last week at Conway Farms to get into the top-30 in the FedExCup.
On the back nine at East Lake, he one-putted four straight greens from outside two metres – one of them for birdie, the rest for pars, all of them clutch. Thomas caught up with birdies on the 16th and 17th, but missed the fairway on the closing hole and couldn't reach the green in two. His eight-metre birdie putt snapped off to the left just in front of the cup.
Schauffele saved par from right of the 17th green for the fourth time on the back nine, and then smashed a tee shot on the 18th that left him an approach just short of the green. He putted that up to one metre and then nearly missed. The ball hit the left edge and swirled 270 degrees before dropping in the front.
However, it was enough to finish at 12-under 268, a victory worth $3.75 million, $2 million of that for finishing third in the FedExCup. He also moved to No. 32 in the world rankings.
Overnight leader Paul Casey stumbled to a 73 to finish fifth, Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm were joint seventh, Sergio García was 10th, Dustin Johnson and Jason Day shared 17th, and last week’s winner Marc Leishman was 24th.
In the final FedExCup ranking, Spieth was second, Johnson fourth, Rahm fifth (in his own debut season – although Schauffele is now likely to win rookie of the year honours), Leishman sixth, Rickie Fowler seventh, Hideki Matsuyama eighth, Justin Rose ninth and Brooks Koepka 10th.
