Scottie Scheffler (-16) has signed the best card of the first day of the TOUR Championship, the grand finale of the PGA Tour, a 65 that boosts his chances of finally conquering the FedEx Cup. Surely no one has deserved it so much, but the Texan’s irregular performance last week at the BMW had brought out some ghosts. Even, his start today on the completely renovated East Lake course, with an early bogey on hole 1, further fuelled that feeling that the end of the season was getting in his way more than necessary.
Today the cocktail has been explosive, perfect. On this course it is essential to take streets to be able to make a good result and, after missing that first exit, Scheffler was only going to miss one more shot from the tee, so we already have him leading again, once again, as so many times in the last three years, all the tee to green statistics. But in addition, Scottie has been one of the best on the greens today, making good on Tiger’s third assumption, when he said that “Scottie wins when he putts decently, he’s in the fight when he putts badly and he escapes when he putts well”. That’s what he’s done, escape, because tomorrow he will start with a seven-stroke lead over his immediate pursuers, Xander Schauffele (-9) and Collin Morikawa (-9), who today has been the first player in the history of this tournament to chain six consecutive birdies. Along the way, he has set the first record of this new course.
There is still a long way to go, but now it seems that everyone depends on a Scheffler who has understood better than anyone the new East Lake of firm and noble greens. Schauffele, however, and although he has won the game to the course (round of 70), has not been able to shine so much on a course where he had been unbeatable so many times.
This start of the World Number One, coupled with the added -10 with which he started for reaching this tournament at the top of the ranking, what he has actually done is already greatly limit the number of candidates. It should be noted that the top ten of the tournament is now closed by four players (Taylor Pendrith, Rory McIlroy, Russel Henley and Patrick Cantlay) with a cumulative -6 and who will therefore start tomorrow with a deficit of ten strokes with the leader. Taller towers have fallen, of course, but it is also time for Scottie Scheffler to win a FedEx Cup and even a play off tournament. It’s almost a matter of sporting justice.
Much had been said in the hours prior to the tournament about whether the new East Lake was going to do more or less damage to the players’ records. Several leaned towards thinking yes, that it was a tougher course, especially with those new and firm greens, but for now reality has shown otherwise, as 28 of the 30 players have signed cards below par.
