{"id":57108,"date":"2026-08-27T14:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57108\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:22:24","slug":"scheffler-winning-big-at-home-and-on-tour-as-season-comes-to-an-end-at-tour-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/57108\/","title":{"rendered":"Scheffler winning big at home and on tour as season comes to an end at Tour Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Scottie Scheffler is having another big season going into the final tournament of the year at the Tour Championship<\/a>. He picked up a $23 million bonus last week as the leading player in the FedEx Cup. His PGA Tour earnings are over $20 million for the fourth consecutive year.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not the full measure.<\/p>\n

Scheffler loves to play when he\u2019s at home in Dallas, whether that\u2019s at Royal Oaks or any other course in town. That often involves Si Woo Kim, who said earlier this year of their one-sided money matches, \u201cHe calls me ATM.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim isn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSi Woo\u2019s getting a lot of hard grief losing to Scottie. I\u2019ve never beaten Scottie in Dallas,\u201d Gary Woodland<\/a> said Wednesday. \u201cHe asked me if I hand him money every time he sees me. Fortunately, that\u2019s been the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodland now lives in South Florida but has returned to working with Randy Smith, the Hall of Fame teacher who has taught Scheffler since he was a boy. He occasionally goes to Dallas for what Woodland calls \u201ctraining camp.\u201d The last such trip was right before Scheffler ended a seven-month drought by winning the FedEx Cup playoffs opener by eight shots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was giving him a hard time that he couldn\u2019t handle the pressure,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cHe parred the last three holes and shot 60 one day. That didn\u2019t work out for Si Woo and I. He\u2019s hard to beat out here. He\u2019s really hard to beat in Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s at stake at the Tour Championship<\/p>\n

Now the \u201cout here\u201d is East Lake for the Tour Championship, the most lucrative event of the season. The winner of the 30-man field claims a $10 million prize in official money from a $40 million purse.<\/p>\n

That will change in two years when the PGA Tour overhauls its schedule and ends with a two-week Tour Championship of match play on two courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For now, it\u2019s up for grabs. Tommy Fleetwood had not won on the PGA Tour all year in 2025 until capturing his first title on U.S. soil at just the right time \u2014 the Tour Championship, making him the FedEx Cup champion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That could fall to someone like Patrick Cantlay, whose runner-up finish got him into East Lake, or a dozen others yet to win this week. It\u2019s a 72-hole shootout for a big prize.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more at stake for Scheffler this week than just more money, and it\u2019s not his chance to end the 26-year reign of Tiger Woods atop the PGA Tour\u2019s career earnings list. He is in a tight race with U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark<\/a> for PGA Tour player of the year.<\/p>\n

Scheffler has won the award the last four years, and while his consistency is the standard in today\u2019s game \u2014 five runner-up finishes to go with two victories \u2014 Clark already has three wins, including the major and last week\u2019s BMW Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scheffler said he is 95% healed from hand, foot and mouth disease<\/a> that caused blisters on his hands, feet and throat last week in St. Louis. He had a hard time gripping the club. He tied for 12th.<\/p>\n

East Lake has not been a course where he can show up and perform well, not like the TPC Scottsdale or Augusta National or Muirfield Village. He finished out of the top 12 the first three times he was at East Lake, and the year he left with the trophy (2024), it was only because he started the tournament with a lead under the old \u201cstarting strokes\u201d format.<\/p>\n

Scheffler\u2019s success starts on the range<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s rarely out of the mix on any course, a credit to how he practices with purpose. Scheffler loves practice almost as much as competition. He jokingly said earlier this year that his ashes should be spread on the range at Royal Oaks \u201cbecause that\u2019s where I spend all my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned over the course of my career is just bringing a certain type of intensity to each round,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI was born being competitive, and I love being able to compete and play out here, and it\u2019s something I don\u2019t take for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I say if I show up at a tournament, I\u2019m not showing up for any other reason,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a warmup. It\u2019s not an obligation. I\u2019m showing up to try to compete and do my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodland has seen it in his trips to Dallas. He says he has learned more watching Scheffler than \u201cprobably anybody out here in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing being with Randy, but it\u2019s amazing for me to practice with Scottie, as well, and watch how he goes about his business and watch what he does,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cI spend as much time with him as I can for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then they usually head out to the course for a money game, $100 a hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to go to the ATM a couple times playing him in Dallas,\u201d Woodland said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full golf coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Scottie Scheffler is having another big season going into the final tournament of the year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[16703,409,1558,294,2489,2199,2490,44,1747,9500,208,354,56,418,1142,714,1557,424],"class_list":["post-57108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-compensation-in-sports","tag-dallas","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-gary-woodland","tag-georgia","tag-golf","tag-patrick-cantlay","tag-randy-smith","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-si-woo-kim","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tiger-woods","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-wyndham-clark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}