{"id":58623,"date":"2026-08-31T01:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/58623\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T01:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:37:16","slug":"did-scottie-schefflers-tour-championship-win-just-lock-up-pga-tour-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/58623\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Scottie Scheffler’s Tour Championship win just lock up PGA Tour player of the year?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scottie Scheffler didn\u2019t just win the Tour Championship on Sunday at East Lake; he likely tilted the odds in his favor for a fifth straight PGA Tour player of the year award.<\/p>\n

While Scheffler and his peers will still have the final say via voting, it will be hard to deny Scheffler after the world No. 1 closed in 4-under 66 to capture his third tournament of the season<\/a> \u2013 and second of the FedExCup Playoffs.<\/p>\n

Entering East Lake, Scheffler was arguably in a virtual tie with Wyndham Clark, who had won three times, including last week\u2019s BMW Championship, and boasted the only glaring omission from Scheffler\u2019s resum\u00e9: a major title.<\/p>\n

Scheffler had the upper hand over the reigning U.S. Open champion Clark and fringe candidates Matt Fitzpatrick, Chris Gotterup and Rory McIlroy in basically everything else. Scheffler led the PGA Tour in the following categories: Wins, runners-up, top-5s, top-10s, top-25s, scoring average, final-round scoring average, strokes gained: total, strokes gained: tee to green, birdie average, greens in regulation, cumulative score to par in majors, FedExCup points (by over 1,400), on-course earnings, and much more.<\/p>\n

Now, Scheffler just did something he\u2019d never done before by winning twice in the postseason. In the four previous years, which also culminated in POY honors, Scheffler had only won two playoff events total, including the 2024 Tour Championship, which still employed starting strokes and where Scheffler didn\u2019t even shoot the lowest gross score for the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it changes my outlook as much as it will change y\u2019all\u2019s,\u201d Scheffler said of Sunday\u2019s win. \u201cI felt like my thought process going into the postseason this year was I felt like maybe I\u2019ve underperformed in some of the postseasons in the past. I think of years like \u201922 and \u201923, where I had a lead at this tournament and wasn\u2019t able to win the FedExCup or a playoff event those years. To come in this year maybe not winning the tournaments that I could have won throughout the regular season, to come in and win two out of three playoff events is definitely a nice way to finish off the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was definitely my motto going into the playoffs: Maybe in years past I\u2019ve underperformed in the postseason, and maybe this is a year I\u2019ll perform better in the postseason than I have in the regular season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to East Lake, it seemed other top Tour pros were split between Scheffler and Clark.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not the player of the year. No chance. Scottie is,\u201d McIlroy said after Scheffler\u2019s blowout win at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. \u201cWell, sorry, there\u2019s two weeks to go, but I firsthand watched him for the first two days last week, and he if he keeps playing like that\u2026 if he gains nine strokes on the greens every week, we\u2019re all effed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Argued Justin Thomas: \u201cI think the best way to really debate it is which season would the players themselves actually rather have. Would they rather have more top-5\u2019s, better scoring average, consistency, wins, etc.? Who has played better? Scottie has played better than anybody on the planet this season. No doubt. But I find it hard to believe he would rather have his season (right now, pre-Tour Championship) than Wyndham\u2019s which includes a major and one more win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods chimed in on Sunday, though not necessarily on the POY race, calling Scheffler\u2019s season \u201chistoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree wins, five runners-up and finishing the season No. 1; those are some numbers to be proud of,\u201d Woods wrote. \u201cIncredible consistency all season long. Congrats on a historic season, Scottie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three wins, five runner-ups and finishing the season No. 1. Those are some numbers to be proud of. Incredible consistency all season long. Congrats on a historic season, Scottie.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) August 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Viktor Hovland found himself on the wrong end of Scheffler\u2019s bookend title.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just good, and he played good every day,\u201d Hovland said. \u201c\u2026 I think he knows that he\u2019s got an edge on most guys out here, so he doesn\u2019t have to do anything crazy. He can play smart and just kind of pick his spots, stay in it constantly. Today it wasn\u2019t like anybody else really played all that great in contention, and that\u2019s what you see, a lot of guys just gagging and throwing up, and that\u2019s where he just kind of stays in it and shoots a nice score. That gets the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat surprisingly, Scheffler wasn\u2019t asked about a potential fifth straight POY award, though he surely would\u2019ve brushed it off.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t seem like a guy, however, who was wanting to trade his year for anybody else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I hold myself to a high standard, which I think sometimes can be good and bad,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI feel like at times I probably could be a bit of a pain to be around when things aren\u2019t going the way they should. I don\u2019t feel like I take days off. I\u2019m highly competitive, and I\u2019m very proud of being able to have the consistent results I\u2019ve had over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s something that\u2019s very difficult to do, and it\u2019s something that I\u2019m very proud of. I don\u2019t take tournaments off. I don\u2019t take days off during tournaments. I try to give it my all each and every day. I feel like it\u2019s a gift to play out here on the PGA Tour, and don\u2019t want to take it for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to look back at the end of my career and feel like I could have done more in order to play well. I want to be able to tell myself when I hang it up that I did everything I could. I feel like years like this kind of show that to myself, how important that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"TOUR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler is taking home an eight-figure check for his work in Atlanta this week. See how the rest of the $40 million purse was paid out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler didn\u2019t just win the Tour Championship on Sunday at East Lake; he likely tilted the odds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-58623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-scottie-scheffler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58623","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=58623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}