Fantastic McIlroy made history! A six-shot lead wasn’t enough for Scheffler

The 2022 FedEx Cup Playoffs, or the culmination of the PGA Tour season, is shaping up to be an incredible spectacle. The denouement of the tournament offered tremendous drama, although there was little to suggest that before the final round of the Tour Championship began. Irish darling Rory McIlroy eventually walked away with the season title, becoming the first golfer in history to dominate a third FedEx Cup playoff.

The East Lake Golf Club course in Atlanta has seen some drama in its long history. And it will likely remember the dramatic denouement of the 2022 FedEx Cup, too.

Sunday’s day got off to a perfect start for Scottie Scheffler. Due to Saturday’s thunderstorms, the third round had to be played in the wee hours of Sunday morning, where the American golfer looked unshakeable as he made birdie after birdie.

He went into the final round with a luxurious six-shot lead just ahead of McIlroy. But what had worked for Scheffler in the morning was suddenly gone at the snap of a finger. And McIlroy made it worse at the start of the fourth round when he made bogey on the opening hole. Scheffler, however, repeated his failed feat.

But then Rory McIlroy caught his championship form while Scheffler still couldn’t get his engines going. On hole number seven, the Irish golfer managed to catch up with the world number one.

An isolated birdie on eight didn’t help Scheffler much as he couldn’t make another shot before the end of the round. McIlroy finally broke his opponent on the fifteenth hole where he made a fantastic birdie after a long putt. From then on, it was definitely clear who had the upper hand in a tight battle of nerves for the title.

Scheffler struggled so much that he couldn’t even defend the sole second position. And if it hadn’t been for an unfortunate double bogey by South Korea’s Imo on the 14th hole, things could have been very different in the end.

In the end, the hero of the day and the season was the man who topped the bookies’ list at many major tournaments last season. But it was only at the very end of the dramatic FedEx Cup that he managed to live up to the high expectations.

By winning the final event of the season, McIlroy earned himself a fabulous $18 million payday. His total earnings for the season then amount to a total of $18,354,566.

But apart from that, McIlroy managed to win the entire FedEx Cup playoffs for the third time in his career, which no player before him has managed to do. Only Tiger Woods held the same number of two wins with him before this year’s Tour Championship.

Source: PGA Tour