Xander Schauffele carded a final round 62 in the Tour Championship, but it still wasn’t enough to catch a dominant Viktor Hovland, who claimed the title and, with it, his first FedEx Cup.
Hovland went into the final round six ahead of Schauffele. However, the American couldn’t have done much more to make the Norwegian worry, with a bogey-free final round that included eight birdies as he finished the tournament 22 under.
Despite those heroics, though, Schauffele still couldn’t narrow the gap further than three shots at any point, as Hovland produced a bogey-free round of his own to finish on 27 under and claim the $18m first prize.
Even with the disappointment of missing out on a second Tour Championship title, though, Schauffele admitted that, as defeats go, it was among the best. Following his final round at East Lake, Schauffele said: ”Yeah, I'll hold my head up high. It was the most fun I had losing in quite some time.
“It's such a weird feeling. I shot 62. I lost by five. Just kudos to Havi. He played unbelievably well the last few weeks to get himself into this position and to really just put a cherry on top for himself and his team.”
Schauffele hasn't won on the PGA Tour since the 2022 Travelers Championship, but he can look back on another solid season, with 11 top-10 finishes, while he has been in the world’s top 10 throughout.
Looking ahead, next month sees a second outing in the Ryder Cup for Schauffele, where he hopes to help Team USA defend the title it won at Whistling Straits two years ago.
Schauffele revealed he’s confident he’ll be ready for the challenge. He said: "It's five weeks away, so I'm going to take some time off and I'm going to have to rebuild that confidence come Italy and the Ryder Cup.
“But, yeah, I think it's definitely - I think we're working on - my team and I, we're working on the right stuff to get these results. Kind of playing sort of whatever coming into the playoffs to sort of peak and play really well at the right time is important, and so I think we're working on the right things.”
With Hovland confirmed as one of the Team Europe players, Schauffele will hope revenge comes soon enough.
