What was once close tournament quickly turned into a blowout Saturday at the 2023 Tour Championship. Entering the day tied atop the leaderboard with Collin Morikawa and two strokes ahead of Scottie Scheffler, it took no time for Viktor Hovland to claim the solo lead. By the time the weather-delayed round concluded, Hovland (-20) opened a healthy six-shot lead on the field as he goes for his second consecutive victory, first Tour Championship and first FedEx Cup.
The Norwegian shot 66 on Saturday to move six ahead of Xander Schauffele (-14) and seven in front of Collin Morikawa (-13). Hovland was his usual solid self, ball-striking his way around a golf course at East Lake Golf Club playing a shot more difficult on Saturday than it did over the first two days of this tournament. He was steady on the back nine as everyone around him started falling off the pace, and now he’s in the driver’s seat for a comically large $18 million payout on Sunday afternoon.
Hovland is attempting to become just the fourth golfer to win the BMW Championship and Tour Championship in succession. If he’s successful, he will cash an astounding $21.6 million in a two-week span.
Let’s take a closer look at Hovland’s third round, his path to victory and what it’s going to take from his peers to keep him from raising a trophy for a second straight Sunday.
Leader
1. Viktor Hovland (-20): He’s hardly been perfect this week, but that has not been necessary given his starting position of 8 under in the staggered start on the leaderboard for this FedEx Cup Playoffs finale. Hovland has used that advantage to his benefit even though he has not necessarily played his best golf across the first 54 holes. He’s putted it fine, but his real work has been done off the tee and from tee to green where he’s top five in the field in both categories.
This all shows up in the way his score has been constructed. Hovland is just not making bogeys. He has just three of them through three rounds because his striking has been so solid. This is what it looks like when you effectively give a few strokes putting at the beginning of the week to a great ball-striker. More often than not, one of them is going to take advantage of this — especially when those around them are not taking advantage — and this year Hovland is the one doing so.
Contenders
2. Xander Schauffele (-14)
3. Collin Morikawa (-13)
4. Keegan Bradley (-12)
5. Jon Rahm (-11)
The obvious question: Are there really other contenders? As noted, Hovland leads everyone not named Schauffele by seven or more, which realistically means that Schauffele is the only player who has even a remote shot of catching him. Morikawa fell back on Saturday with one of the worst rounds of the day. His insane 15-under pace over the first two rounds was always going to be difficult to maintain.
The reality here is that if Hovland shoots anything under par on Sunday, it’s pretty much over. Let’s say the leader shoots 69, the players directly behind him would have to shoot 62 or 61 to win the tournament. That’s incredibly unlikely, and even if Hovland shoots even par or 1 over, it’s likely he wins this event.
There’s a reason he’s -1100 to hold the trophy right now.
However, one thing to keep in mind is what happened last year with Rory McIlroy and Scheffler. The latter led the former by six going into the last day, but McIlroy played seven better than Scheffler, who stumbled to a 73. Schauffele plays this golf course even better than McIlroy, and while it’s unlikely that Hovland stumbles to a 73 like Scheffler did, Schauffele is the one to watch out for over the final 18 holes.
At stake Sunday
If Hovland hangs on Sunday, he will have won $21.6 million over the last eight days. To contextualize that figure, it’s more than Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert will make this year and also more than David Duval earned in his entire career.
Here are the payouts for the top 10 in the field (the other 20 will all bring home at least $500,000):
- 1st: $18,000,000
- 2nd: $6,500,000
- 3rd: $5,000,000
- 4th: $4,000,000
- 5th: $3,000,000
- 6th: $2,500,000
- 7th: $2,000,000
- 8th: $1,500,00
- 9th: $1,250,000
- 10th: $1,000,000
Struggling Scheffler
The No. 1 player in the world looks exhausted. He didn’t make a birdie in his round and nearly finished last in putting, approach play, tee to green play and overall play. His 3-over score was one better than the worst of the day (Jason Day, +4). Given the circumstances, one could pretty easily argue that it was his worst round of golf of the year.
So, what’s up with that? I go back to this quote from last week at the BMW Championship.
“There’s a lot more energy that gets taken away from the course [when I’m in contention],” he said. “At this point in the year, I’m definitely very tired, and I’m looking forward to next week being done. But at the same time, I didn’t work this hard and for this long to just cash in the last two weeks and not really do my best.”
He certainly looks like he’s beyond the “very tired” portion of his season, which is what you’d expect from somebody who has been having one of the great ball-hitting seasons ever but cannot win a tournament because he’s struggling with his putter and is on Round 11 of 12 of insanely hot, muggy playoff golf.
Scheffler narrowly avoided his first birdie-free round in 15 months with a four at the last at East Lake. Unfortunately, it was his only circle of the day, and now he’s likely too far back of Hovland (nine shots) to do anything but play for second.
require.config({"baseUrl":"https:\/\/sportsfly.cbsistatic.com\/fly-0537\/bundles\/sportsmediajs\/js-build","config":{"version":{"fly\/components\/accordion":"1.0","fly\/components\/alert":"1.0","fly\/components\/base":"1.0","fly\/components\/carousel":"1.0","fly\/components\/dropdown":"1.0","fly\/components\/fixate":"1.0","fly\/components\/form-validate":"1.0","fly\/components\/image-gallery":"1.0","fly\/components\/iframe-messenger":"1.0","fly\/components\/load-more":"1.0","fly\/components\/load-more-article":"1.0","fly\/components\/load-more-scroll":"1.0","fly\/components\/loading":"1.0","fly\/components\/modal":"1.0","fly\/components\/modal-iframe":"1.0","fly\/components\/network-bar":"1.0","fly\/components\/poll":"1.0","fly\/components\/search-player":"1.0","fly\/components\/social-button":"1.0","fly\/components\/social-counts":"1.0","fly\/components\/social-links":"1.0","fly\/components\/tabs":"1.0","fly\/components\/video":"1.0","fly\/libs\/easy-xdm":"2.4.17.1","fly\/libs\/jquery.cookie":"1.2","fly\/libs\/jquery.throttle-debounce":"1.1","fly\/libs\/jquery.widget":"1.9.2","fly\/libs\/omniture.s-code":"1.0","fly\/utils\/jquery-mobile-init":"1.0","fly\/libs\/jquery.mobile":"1.3.2","fly\/libs\/backbone":"1.0.0","fly\/libs\/underscore":"1.5.1","fly\/libs\/jquery.easing":"1.3","fly\/managers\/ad":"2.0","fly\/managers\/components":"1.0","fly\/managers\/cookie":"1.0","fly\/managers\/debug":"1.0","fly\/managers\/geo":"1.0","fly\/managers\/gpt":"4.3","fly\/managers\/history":"2.0","fly\/managers\/madison":"1.0","fly\/managers\/social-authentication":"1.0","fly\/utils\/data-prefix":"1.0","fly\/utils\/data-selector":"1.0","fly\/utils\/function-natives":"1.0","fly\/utils\/guid":"1.0","fly\/utils\/log":"1.0","fly\/utils\/object-helper":"1.0","fly\/utils\/string-helper":"1.0","fly\/utils\/string-vars":"1.0","fly\/utils\/url-helper":"1.0","libs\/jshashtable":"2.1","libs\/select2":"3.5.1","libs\/jsonp":"2.4.0","libs\/jquery\/mobile":"1.4.5","libs\/modernizr.custom":"2.6.2","libs\/velocity":"1.2.2","libs\/dataTables":"1.10.6","libs\/dataTables.fixedColumns":"3.0.4","libs\/dataTables.fixedHeader":"2.1.2","libs\/dateformat":"1.0.3","libs\/waypoints\/infinite":"3.1.1","libs\/waypoints\/inview":"3.1.1","libs\/waypoints\/jquery.waypoints":"3.1.1","libs\/waypoints\/sticky":"3.1.1","libs\/jquery\/dotdotdot":"1.6.1","libs\/jquery\/flexslider":"2.1","libs\/jquery\/lazyload":"1.9.3","libs\/jquery\/maskedinput":"1.3.1","libs\/jquery\/marquee":"1.3.1","libs\/jquery\/numberformatter":"1.2.3","libs\/jquery\/placeholder":"0.2.4","libs\/jquery\/scrollbar":"0.1.6","libs\/jquery\/tablesorter":"2.0.5","libs\/jquery\/touchswipe":"1.6.18","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.core":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.draggable":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.mouse":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.position":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.slider":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.sortable":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.touch-punch":"0.2.3","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.autocomplete":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.accordion":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.tabs":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.menu":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.dialog":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.resizable":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.button":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.tooltip":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.effects":"1.11.4","libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.datepicker":"1.11.4"}},"shim":{"liveconnection\/managers\/connection":{"deps":["liveconnection\/libs\/sockjs-0.3.4"]},"liveconnection\/libs\/sockjs-0.3.4":{"exports":"SockJS"},"libs\/setValueFromArray":{"exports":"set"},"libs\/getValueFromArray":{"exports":"get"},"fly\/libs\/jquery.mobile-1.3.2":["version!fly\/utils\/jquery-mobile-init"],"libs\/backbone.marionette":{"deps":["jquery","version!fly\/libs\/underscore","version!fly\/libs\/backbone"],"exports":"Marionette"},"fly\/libs\/underscore-1.5.1":{"exports":"_"},"fly\/libs\/backbone-1.0.0":{"deps":["version!fly\/libs\/underscore","jquery"],"exports":"Backbone"},"libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.tabs-1.11.4":["jquery","version!libs\/jquery\/ui\/jquery.ui.core","version!fly\/libs\/jquery.widget"],"libs\/jquery\/flexslider-2.1":["jquery"],"libs\/dataTables.fixedColumns-3.0.4":["jquery","version!libs\/dataTables"],"libs\/dataTables.fixedHeader-2.1.2":["jquery","version!libs\/dataTables"],"https:\/\/sports.cbsimg.net\/js\/CBSi\/app\/VideoPlayer\/AdobePass-min.js":["https:\/\/sports.cbsimg.net\/js\/CBSi\/util\/Utils-min.js"]},"map":{"*":{"adobe-pass":"https:\/\/sports.cbsimg.net\/js\/CBSi\/app\/VideoPlayer\/AdobePass-min.js","facebook":"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js","facebook-debug":"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all\/debug.js","google":"https:\/\/apis.google.com\/js\/plusone.js","google-csa":"https:\/\/www.google.com\/adsense\/search\/async-ads.js","google-javascript-api":"https:\/\/www.google.com\/jsapi","google-client-api":"https:\/\/accounts.google.com\/gsi\/client","gpt":"https:\/\/securepubads.g.doubleclick.net\/tag\/js\/gpt.js","hlsjs":"https:\/\/cdnjs.cloudflare.com\/ajax\/libs\/hls.js\/1.0.7\/hls.js","recaptcha":"https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/api.js?onload=loadRecaptcha&render=explicit","recaptcha_ajax":"https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/api\/js\/recaptcha_ajax.js","supreme-golf":"https:\/\/sgapps-staging.supremegolf.com\/search\/assets\/js\/bundle.js","taboola":"https:\/\/cdn.taboola.com\/libtrc\/cbsinteractive-cbssports\/loader.js","twitter":"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js","video-avia":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/avia-js\/2.12.0\/player\/avia.min.js","video-avia-ui":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/avia-js\/2.12.0\/plugins\/ui\/avia.ui.min.js","video-avia-gam":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/avia-js\/2.12.0\/plugins\/gam\/avia.gam.min.js","video-avia-hls":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/avia-js\/2.12.0\/plugins\/hls\/avia.hls.min.js","video-avia-playlist":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/avia-js\/2.12.0\/plugins\/playlist\/avia.playlist.min.js","video-ima3":"https:\/\/imasdk.googleapis.com\/js\/sdkloader\/ima3.js","video-ima3-dai":"https:\/\/imasdk.googleapis.com\/js\/sdkloader\/ima3_dai.js","video-utils":"https:\/\/sports.cbsimg.net\/js\/CBSi\/util\/Utils-min.js","video-vast-tracking":"https:\/\/vidtech.cbsinteractive.com\/sb55\/vast-js\/vtg-vast-client.js"}},"waitSeconds":300});
The post 2023 Tour Championship leaderboard: Viktor Hovland well ahead of field as Hot Streak Continues at East Lake appeared first on Al Jazeera News Today.
