Tour Championship becomes shootout between Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa

That doesn’t even count his Olympic gold medal. Now, Scottie Scheffler is looking for his first Tour Championship victory after having a two-stroke advantage the last two seasons and going home without a victory.

The way he strides down the fairway, you can tell he’s determined not to let it happen again.  In one more day, he may make the biggest paycheck of his career. Surprisingly, the size of the payday probably won’t matter to him.

“I don't play it for money or anything like that. I play it because I love to compete. That's what I'm here for this week is to compete and do my best,” he said about golf last week at the BMW.

After three rounds, he’s locked in a battle with two-time major winner Collin Morikawa who is trying to get back to the form he had in 2020 and 2021 when he won the PGA and the British Open. He is looking very strong.

Unfortunately, for Scheffler, who is leading, he remembers his past experiences at the Tour Championship.  

“I was thinking about this the other day,” he said at the BMW. “This tournament last year I had a really good final round. I had a couple-shot lead on the back nine, and I think I played the last five or six holes in even par on a very, very difficult golf course and got chased down by Viktor.”

In both 2022 and 2023, he came to the Tour Championship as the leader in FedEx points and had the advantage over the other competitors in the field. But he did not win either tournament, a fact not lost on him.

In 2022, Scottie Scheffler lost by a stroke to Rory McIlroy.   

In the 2023 season, as he referenced, he lost to Viktor Hovland. That year, Scheffler finished the tournament at 11-under, 16 strokes behind.

It’s hard to erase those kinds of memories.

However, if the back nine on Saturday is any indication, it’s going to be a real Sunday shootout between Scheffler and Morikawa. 

From 10 to 14, it was par, par par par.  A stalemate. Then, they started slinging birdies at each other.  Birdie for Scheffler at 14. For Morikawa on 15. Scheffler at 16. And then both of them birdied the 17th. As they came to the final hole, a par 5 with a newly done fairway that no one but the architect likes, Scheffler was at 25-under par and Morikawa was at 20-under. 

A hot summer haze hung in the air with an odor of burning wood. Was the golf that hot? Or were people firing up their barbeques?

They came to the 18th.

Morikawa’s drive was in the fairway, and he landed his second in the deep rough around the green.  His chip/ hack out of the grass landed three feet away from the hole, and he dropped his final birdie for the day. Bam.

Scheffler’s drive was in the rough, just in front of the water.  That meant he would be faced with a difficult shot that was hard to stop on a green that was, by all accounts, hard to hold. But he got it to about three feet and would not be denied. Bam. Another birdie.

When it was all over, the two had been in sand, in wood chips, near trees, and spent the day being broiled by the hot sun. But they shook hands and readied to return Sunday afternoon to find out who the winner would be. Morikawa at 21-under par or Scheffler at 26 under.   

Once again Scheffler has the advantage, and if he plays the way he has all season, it’s likely he will emerge victorious. But with his history at East Lake, it’s not a given.