Viktor Hovland’s heroics, Scottie Scheffler’s doubts – Five things we learned from the BMW Championship

Starting the day three back of co-leaders Matt Fitzpatrick and Scottie Scheffler, Hovland put on a stripe show and played what can only be described as cheat-code golf. Birdies on the 17th and 18th, the two hardest holes on the Olympia Fields layout, proved enough for a two-shot victory over world No.1 Scheffler and Ryder Cup team-mate Fitzpatrick.

It was also the lowest final round ever in FedExCup Playoff history and it further solidified his place among the world’s best.

With his third win of the season, after earlier successes at the Hero World Challenge and the Memorial, Hovland is now up to second in the FedExCup standings and he will tee off at East Lake, home of the Tour Championship, at eight-under-par under the unique scoring system for this week’s tournament.

“That has to be the best round I’ve ever played,” Hovland said. “Given the circumstances, a Playoffs event, this golf course – the way I played the last holes was pretty special.”

Bagman Shay Knight, who is closer to Hovland’s game than any of us, added: “He was on automatic.

“He’s such an aggressive player, and when he’s on, he’s got no fear. He tries to birdie every hole. He’s been playing well the last couple weeks. He played well last week, but Sunday wasn’t great. He kind of feels that Sundays haven’t been his best, and we spoke about that last week and he did what he did today. It was super-impressive.”

With the well-documented short game struggles now behind him and his Sunday play improving, next season could be set to bring the 25-year-old even more success.

The FedExCup standings were constantly changing throughout the course of the BMW Championship, with some players inside the top-30 bubble one day and then outside it the next, but we now know who is set to tee it up at the PGA Tour’s curtain-closer.

Just one player moved inside the top 30 this week: Matt Fitzpatrick (from 40th to 10th) with a runner-up finish at the BMW. That didn’t mean there was any lack of drama though as there were points where the likes of Jordan Spieth, Tyrrell Hatton and Sepp Straka were all set to fall on the wrong side of the line.

Spieth had a poor final round, including back-to-back bogeys on 17 and 18, which didn’t help his case and left his situation up in the air. Fortunately for the 30-year-old, he managed to sneak in at No. 29 as Denny McCarthy faltered coming in, one of the only men who could nudge him out.

Europeans Hatton and Straka could also breathe a sigh of relief when all was said and done.

Straka needed a final-round, three-under 67 at the BMW Championship to advance to the final week. He shot a four-under-par 66, on the strength of a front-nine 30 which was good enough to get the Austrian in at No. 30, which meant heartbreak for Sahith Theegala as his untimely bogey at the last proved the difference. Hatton secured the 28th spot, which he might have found hard to believe after signing for a final-round 71, which included a double bogey and two bogeys in the final four holes.

“I don’t think I’ll be there,” quipped a frustrated looking Hatton to a PGA Tour official after his round. Luckily for him, it was good enough to get into the season finale.

Things were looking good for Justin Rose during most of the tournament, teeing off his final round at No. 26, but a sluggish three-over-par Sunday put him in reverse, eventually finishing at No. 33 with Rose now relying on a captain’s pick if he wants to make Luke Donald’s Ryder Cup team.

The BMW Championship marked the last event where US Ryder Cup hopefuls could add to their points tally based on money earned between last year’s event and this year, and we now know the final few players who have made automatically onto Zach Johnson’s team.

Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman and Patrick Cantlay were already in but both Max Homa and Xander Schauffele would have to perform well if they were to make it inside the top six qualifying spots.

A tie for fifth and eighth respectively was good enough for them to lock in a spot, with Schauffele notably leapfrogging Brooks Koepka, who now needs a captain’s pick if he wants a spot on the plane to Italy.

“It meant a lot,” a jubilant Homa said after accomplishing one of his long-standing goals.

“Very excited. Super, super, super excited…I told Zach two years ago that I wasn’t going to need a pick, tongue-in-cheek, so it’s very cool. It was a big goal coming into the play-offs, to catch them and pass them where I didn’t need to get a pick, just for my own peace of mind. So it feels good.”

Scheffler looked set to land another big win after victories early on at the WM Phoenix Open and Players Championship, both designated events. He birdied six of the first 13 holes and led for much of the BMW Championship’s last round.

His game then cooled off however, as he played the last five holes in one-over-par, with the problem once again seeming to be his putter.

This is by no means a real cause for concern, he is still the world No. 1, has banked millions, enters the Tour Championship top of the standings once again and he will be rewarded by starting at 10-under-par. It was Scheffler’s 16th top-10 finish of the season, however, had the putter remained hot throughout the season, we could have been analysing one of the best seasons ever witnessed.

Scheffler’s stats have been crazy good all season, he sits atop of most of the categories including Strokes Gained for Off the Tee, Tee to Green, Approach and ‘Total,’ but after the BMW Championship concluded he was 145th for Strokes Gained in Putting.

Despite his imperious play all season long, Scheffler did admit to feeling pressure when standing over some putts on Sunday.

“I felt like I doubted myself a little bit on 16, and then 17 it was like – it was weird because I had a lot of those right-to-lefters today, and it seemed like I was just hitting them barely through the break.”

Scheffler will hope to shake those doubts as he aims for FedExCup glory at East Lake this week.

This season, the conversation has been around the ‘Big Three’ of Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, with all of them having marvellous campaigns and playing hot potato with the world No. 1 spot, but Rahm’s game appears to have cooled at the worst possible time.

Rahm was visibly frustrated as early as the first round at the BMW with hot mic setting alight as it captured more than a few expletives thanks to some wayward driving.

Uncharacteristically, there were a few moments during the week that we’ve not come to expect with the Spaniard, poor putts coupling some poor approach shots on Friday en route to a four-over-par 74.

Such is the size of points on offer during the play-offs – quadruple the amount for a regular season win – hiccups at this stage can prove costly, as Rahm has now found out.

He slips to No. 4 in the FedExCup standings, having held possession of the No. 1 spot for most of the season and starts the Tour Championship at six-under-par, four shots behind Scheffler when they tee off on Thursday.

Commenting on how difficult the play-off stretch is, Rahm said, “I can tell you that it probably is more difficult and more challenging and more competitive than what you can probably see or imagine in all these players’ heads just because it truly is.

“It’s an elite number of players that can call themselves PGA Tour players, and the elite of that elite will be making it to this week and a more selective group to next week and even more selective to Ryder Cup.”