The PGA Tour regular season reaches its climax at the Tour Championship from East Lake, Georgia.
While there are still a handful of events remaining in the FedEx Fall where players battle for PGA Tour cards, this week represents the last opportunity to see the game’s biggest names tee it up alongside each other until 2027.
The first thing to know about East Lake is that it’s a long course and is highly demanding off the tee. Fairways historically haven’t been easy to hit and there’s thick Bermudagrass waiting for errant drives, though since the 2024 restoration, fairways have been widened, allowing the longer hitters to open their shoulders a bit more.
Generally, with fairways hard to find and driver being taken just about everywhere, East Lake has traditionally suited longer hitters, but Russell Henley and Corey Conners found themselves in the top four last year, with Tommy Fleetwood emerging victorious.
The only real threat of water comes on the eighth and 15th; the eighth of course being a driveable par-4 when the tee is up.
While East Lake has largely been bomber friendly, stellar iron play has always been the key to victory. Ignoring the starting strokes, the lowest scores over the last seven years have been shot by: Tommy Fleetwood; Collin Morikawa; Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele; Rory McIlroy, Kevin Na and Jon Rahm; Schauffele, and finally McIlroy again.
The greens are a pacey Bermudagrass, a surface seen at Kapalua, Waialae, PGA National, Bay Hill, TPC Louisiana, The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, Sedgefield, TPC Southwind, East lake, CC of Jackson, Port Royal and Sea Island.
5 - Patrick Cantlay
Even a bang-average putting week would have been enough for Patrick Cantlay to land a third BMW Championship last week.
The 34-year-old led the field in SG: Ball-striking and approach, as well as ranking second for SG: Around the green and seventh for SG: Off the tee. The 43rd for SG: Putting, however, was Cantlay’s undoing.
The tee-shot into the bunker on 11 followed by the wedge into the water led to a double-bogey which ultimately gave Cantlay too much to do, despite impressively closing with three birdies to second solo-second.
Without really threatening leaderboards, Cantlay’s played some decent golf this year with top-10s at the Valspar Championship, RBC Heritage, Truist Championship and Rocket Classic and top-20s at the American Express, Pebble Beach, the Masters, the Memorial, the Travelers Championship and the FedEx St Jude.
The winless streak continues for Cantlay, but his excellent record at East Lake – where he won in 2021 – suggests he may find himself in the mix again this week.
4 - Xander Schauffele
It’s fair to say that the ultra-consistent version of Xander Schauffele still isn’t quite with us. After a remarkable run in 2023 and 2024, Schauffele has put together a run of four straight top-20s just once since May 2024.
While that might not sound disastrous, Schauffele went 15 straight singles events without finishing outside the top 18 in 2024.
His T26 at last week’s BMW Championship wasn’t particularly inspiring either, though a lot of the damage was done by a quadruple-bogey on the sixth on Sunday.
Schauffele ranked 14th for SG: Ball-striking and second for SG: Off the tee, suggesting his long game is still holding up okay, and his driving -- important at East Lake -- remains elite, ranking tied-second in the field alongside Rory McIlroy for SG: Off the tee across the last eight events as per Golf Betting System.
What Schauffele does have in his favour this week is an outrageous record at East Lake. The two-time major winner won on debut here in 2017 as a PGA Tour rookie in what was a substantial upset before going T7-2-T2-T5-4-2-T4.
Schauffele’s poor 2025 snapped his streak of eight straight East Lake appearances, but the 32-year-old will fancy his chances at one of his favourite venues this week.
3 - Wyndham Clark
Winning on the PGA Tour is hard. Winning twice in a season is very hard. Winning three times in a season will typically see you named PGA Tour Player of the Year.
That award isn’t quite wrapped up for Wyndham Clark, despite winning a play-off event and the US Open, but he may well be favourite for it.
A poor start to the season, largely owing to putting woes, saw Clark fail to crack a top-30 in seven straight events, but a red-hot week with the flat stick at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson landed a first piece of silverware of the season for Clark.
The 32-year-old then captured a second US Open title a month later and now has a BMW Championship to his name.
Clark’s driving and iron play have largely been solid, but the difference between his putting at the start of the season and the last few months has been night and day.
Clark now returns to East Lake for the first time since 2024, where he’s played really well in both of his outings, finishing third and eighth, and a fourth win of the year can’t be discounted.
2 - Scottie Scheffler
Scottie Scheffler’s regression after the best putting week of his career at the FedEx St Jude wasn’t wholly surprising; his admission that he’d spent the week battling the highly contagious and debilitating hand, foot and mouth disease, however, was.
Scheffler’s poor opening round of 72 left him eight shots off the lead and with perhaps a little too much to do, though the world number one deserves credit for battling to a T12 finish, especially given the circumstances.
It’s hard to know exactly how well players have performed at East Lake over the years owing to the starting strokes used for six years; Scheffler won the Tour Championship in 2024 but was two shots worse than Collin Morikawa across the week; would he have made those shots up without starting two ahead of Morikawa? We’ll never know.
What we do know is Scheffler is yet to shoot the lowest score over four rounds in his six appearances at East Lake and as recently as 2023, he shot 18 strokes more than winner Viktor Hovland despite finishing T6.
1 - Rory McIlroy
There are some courses that are just synonymous with Rory McIlroy. Quail Hollow is one; Jumeirah Golf Estates is another. East Lake should certainly be a third.
McIlroy has won the Tour Championship on three occasions, and with it being a stretching, driver-heavy course, it’s little wonder.
The Northern Irishman spent a month off the course between The Open and the FedEx St Jude, where his poor play led to an admission that he was ‘so far away’ from where he needed to be.
As such, McIlroy was hugely unpopular in the betting last week and failed to feature in our Power Rankings for the BMW Championship.
Sure enough, McIlroy hung around throughout the week to go out in the final group on Sunday, albeit five shots back of Wyndham Clark. McIlroy got level with Clark on the back nine when his momentum stopped and Clark was able to enjoy his walk up to the 18th green, but it was a really promising week for McIlroy considering the state of his game seven days prior.
Returning to one of his favourite venues, there’s little reason to think McIlroy can’t add a fourth Tour Championship to his CV.
