Scottie Scheffler and PGA Tour's best players face a new course in mile-high Castle Pines
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler could easily have chosen to sit out the BMW Championship to boost his chances of capping off his sensational season with the FedEx Cup.
Barring a victory by Xander Schauffele at Castle Pines, Scheffler is assured of being the No. 1 seed who starts the Tour Championship with a two-shot advantage.
The course is new to all but two players in the 50-man field — Adam Scott and Jason Day — having last hosted the world's best players in 2006. It's in the mile-high air south of Denver and is the longest course in PGA Tour history at 8,130 yards.
For players and caddies, it's like walking Kapalua with views of mountains instead of humpback whales breaching in the Pacific Ocean.
“The ball is going farther, but we’ve got to walk all that way,” Patrick Cantlay said.
And then next week it's back to steamy Atlanta and East Lake, a course where players won't be hitting pitching wedge from 200 yards to a downhill par 3 (as Justin Thomas did Wednesday).
“If I was to truly say I want to play my best golf at East Lake, this may have been a week where I would have taken off, just because there's so much emphasis on East Lake,” Scheffler said. “I kind of figured out this year I don't love playing the week before a major championship. So with East Lake having so much importance in the season-long race, if I was to truly look at my goal at the beginning of the year to win East Lake, this would have a week where I would consider maybe take off, especially with the points lead that I have.”
But he was at Castle Pines, playing nine holes of a pro-am, working on the range in the early afternoon, trying to get dialed in with his swing and make adjustments to the altitude.
Scheffler has more experience than most. He played Korn Ferry Tour events in Colorado and Colombia. He played at Chapultepec in Mexico City for a World Golf Championship. He even took a family vacation this summer to Colorado and played in the thin air.
But it's mostly about the competition, as it usually is for Scheffler.
Until this year, he had never won a PGA Tour event after April. Now he has added titles in June and an Olympic gold medal in August. He has never won a FedEx Cup playoff event.
And the BMW Championship packs plenty of history, the one PGA Tour event that offers two trophies for his ever-expanding golf room — the BMW Championship and the Western Golf Association, which has run this tournament since 1899.
“I talk about not one trophy being much more important than another,” Scheffler said. “I would love to win the FedEx Cup, but I would also love to win this tournament. I've never won a playoff event before, so that would be something that would be really cool to do.
“We got the guys that have played the best golf on the PGA Tour here this week, and it should be some good competition.”
At stake this week, besides two trophies and $4 million to the winner, is a chance for the top 30 to advance to the season-ending Tour Championship. Also at stake is an automatic spot in the Presidents Cup to be played at the end of September at Royal Montreal.
The leading six Americans and six International players (from everywhere but Europe) qualify, and each side gets six wild-card picks.
Justin Thomas at least gets to audition. He was a captain's pick for the Ryder Cup last year despite not qualifying for the postseason. Now he is at No. 22 in the FedEx Cup with a strong probability of reaching East Lake. But he's at No. 16 in the Presidents Cup standings.
There is a mixture of comfort in the way he's playing and nervousness about perhaps having to wait for another captain's pick.
“Last year I had a lot of anxiety about making the Ryder Cup team. I want to make the Presidents Cup team just as bad,” Thomas said. “But I’m in such a better place and my game is in such a better place that I’m not coming to tournaments trying to play well to try to make a team. I feel that I’m fully capable and I’m playing well enough that I can win every tournament I’m playing in. It’s just about putting myself there and doing it.”
The challenge is Castle Pines. It may say 8,130 yards on the scorecard, but at elevation and how far the ball travels in mile-high air, it's probably closer to 7,400 yards, typical of a PGA Tour venue. There's also plenty of elevation, and the wind was so strong Wednesday morning it toppled large umbrellas in concession area.
The course for two decades used the modified Stableford scoring system, awarding points for birdies and better, taking away points for bogeys. Now it's stroke play. And being part of the FedEx Cup playoffs, it's all about points to see which 30 players move on.
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