“WOW!!”
That’s all we heard for four days at Medinah Country Club in Illinois as the best golfers in the world tore up the course at the 2019 BMW Championship, the 2nd leg of the PGA Playoffs. The course record of 65 was matched twice and beat two more times — Hideki Matsuyama shot a 63 on Friday (and then again on Sunday) and then Justin Thomas shot a 61 on Saturday to set the record, including a beautiful hole-out from 16. Thomas dominated all four days to finish -25 (65, 69, 61, 68), which secures JT the number one spot heading into the TOUR Championship. This was JT’s first win of the season and it could not have come at a better time.
JT did have some competition this weekend however. The aforementioned Matsuyama was in position to lead but could not hold on after shooting a 73 (+1) on Saturday, the same day JT had the course record. Patrick Cantlay, who was coming off back-to-back T12 finishes, shot 66-67-68-65 (266) to finish -22 and moved up two spots in the FedEx standings from 6 to 4. Finau was in the final group alongside Cantlay and JT and despite shooting all four rounds in the 60’s, it was not good enough to catch JT.
BMW Championship Final
| Pos | Player | Total | F4 | FedEx Cup | |
| Proj | Start | ||||
| 1 |
J. Thomas 🇺🇸 |
-25 | -4 | 1 | 15 |
| 2 |
P. Cantlay 🇺🇸 |
-22 | -7 | 2 | 6 |
| 3 |
H. Matsuyama 🇯🇵 |
-20 | -9 | 15 | 33 |
| 4 |
T. Finau 🇺🇸 |
-18 | -3 | 12 | 19 |
| T5 |
J. Rahm 🇪🇸 |
-16 | -3 | 6 | 5 |
| T5 |
B. Snedeker 🇺🇸 |
-16 | -4 | 18 | 22 |
| T7 |
C. Conners 🇨🇦 |
-15 | -3 | 23 | 27 |
| T7 |
L. Glover 🇺🇸 |
-15 | -3 | 29 | 41 |
| T9 |
A. Scott 🇦🇺 |
-14 | -5 | 13 | 14 |
| T9 |
K. Kisner 🇺🇸 |
-14 | -3 | 20 | 21 |
JT moves up 14 spots to the #1 in the FedEx Cup Standings with only one event remaining. The PGA Tour has upped the ante for the TOUR Championship and the #1 seed has a big advantage going into the tournament. The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings make the Tour Championship and due to what happened last year (Tiger winning the TOUR Championship and Justin Rose finishing #1 in FedEx points) the leader will start the 2019 TOUR Championship -10, while the 30th player will start even par.
| FedEx Rank | Starting Strokes |
| No. 1 | -10 |
| No. 2 | -8 |
| No. 3 | -7 |
| No. 4 | -6 |
| No. 5 | -5 |
| Nos. 6-10 | -4 |
| Nos. 11-15 | -3 |
| Nos. 16-20 | -2 |
| Nos. 21-25 | -1 |
| Nos. 26-30 | E |
There will be some prominent names missing from the TOUR Championship, staring with Tiger. Tiger Woods finished T37 at the BMW and will not be able to defend his TOUR Championship title from 2018 as he did not qualify in the top 30 (of the FedEx Cup standings). Tiger might have had a shot if he did not withdraw from The NORTHERN TRUST, however TW looked pretty good on Saturday, carding a 67 (-5) and making some impressive putts. This puts an end to Tiger’s season and even though he didn’t play that well in the last few months, he is still the current Masters champion. We won’t see Tiger again until October for the ZOZO Championship in Japan.
Another name that will miss the TOUR Championship is Jordan Spieth. Spieth has been playing better as of late, but did not take advantage of the soft conditions at Medinah and finished T37 (alongside Tiger). Spieth was 44th in the standings before the BMW Championship and he is currently 44th, so no movement there. The final spot in the TOUR Championship was earned by Jason Kokrak, who started the BMW Championship 32nd in the standings and moved up the 2 spots he needed to.
Up Next
Aug 22-25*: TOUR Championship, East Lake GC, GA
FedEx Cup Standings
| Rank | LW | Player | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | Justin Thomas | 3,475 |
| 2 | 6 | Patrick Cantlay | 3,157 |
| 3 | 1 | Brooks Koepka | 3,119 |
| 4 | 2 | Patrick Reed | 2,946 |
| 5 | 3 | Rory McIlroy | 2,842 |
| 6 | 5 | Jon Rahm | 2,517 |
| 7 | 4 | Matt Kuchar | 2,339 |
| 8 | 7 | Xander Schauffele | 2,030 |
| 9 | 11 | Webb Simpson | 1,946 |
| 10 | 8 | Abraham Ancer | 1,940 |
| 11 | 9 | Gary Woodland | 1,912 |
| 12 | 19 | Tony Finau | 1,911 |
| 13 | 14 | Adam Scott | 1,874 |
| 14 | 10 | Dustin Johnson | 1,840 |
| 15 | 33 | Hideki Matsuyama | 1,821 |
| 16 | 13 | Paul Casey | 1,768 |
| 17 | 12 | Justin Rose | 1,739 |
| 18 | 22 | Brandt Snedeker | 1,709 |
| 19 | 17 | Rickie Fowler | 1,637 |
| 20 | 21 | Kevin Kisner | 1,635 |
| 21 | 16 | Marc Leishman | 1,587 |
| 22 | 24 | Tommy Fleetwood | 1,479 |
| 23 | 27 | Corey Conners | 1,476 |
| 24 | 26 | Sungjae Im | 1,407 |
| 25 | 18 | Chez Reavie | 1,394 |
| 26 | 20 | Bryson DeChambeau | 1,371 |
| 27 | 28 | Louis Oosthuizen | 1,355 |
| 28 | 23 | Charles Howell III | 1,345 |
| 29 | 41 | Lucas Glover | 1,337 |
| 30 | 32 | Jason Kokrak | 1,254 |
RosenthalSports.com 