Scottie Scheffler captures another
FedEx Cup and moves past Tiger Woods in PGA Tour career earnings
[August 31, 2026]
By DOUG FERGUSON
ATLANTA (AP) — Scottie Scheffler's second FedEx Cup title, and his
22nd victory on the PGA Tour during this astonishing five-year run,
was different from all the others, even if it looked all too
familiar.
Scheffler celebrated with a beer.
He had just closed with a 4-under 66 in the Tour Championship on
Sunday — no one else from the leading six players broke par — and
Scheffler had to wait for the last two groups to finish to make it
official.
“There was an open bar inside and I'm like, ‘All right, I’m grabbing
a beer.' It tasted great,” Scheffler said. “I don't really drink
often. My wife and manager were like, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen you have
a beer in a long time.' Well, season's over now. I'm going to have a
beer. Well-earned beer.”
There was no arguing that, and there's no longer a debate over who
had the best season in golf.
Scheffler took care of that at East Lake when he made up a
three-shot deficit in four holes and pulled away to win the Tour
Championship, claim a second FedEx Cup title and move past Tiger
Woods for most PGA Tour earnings.
Scheffler signaled his rally with a 5-iron to within 2 inches of the
cup on the 211-yard second hole. He caught Viktor Hovland with a
25-foot birdie on the fourth hole, pulled ahead for the first time
on the 13th and wound up with a three-shot victory.
It was his first time with the low 72-hole score at the Tour
Championship.
When he won in 2024, he had a two-shot lead before the tournament
began given to the No. 1 seed under the “starting strokes” format.
He won by four shots, even though two other players had a lower
actual score. That still bugs him.
“When you’re coming down the stretch of a tournament and you’re tied
or one shot back, it’s different than when you’re adding it up at
the end and there’s starting strokes and all that stuff,” Scheffler
said. “I think having a real tournament to finish the year, where I
am the winner and the lowest score at East Lake, feels like a bit
more of an accomplishment.”
Scheffler won for the third time this year — twice in the last three
weeks during the PGA Tour's postseason — to match Chris Gotterup,
Matt Fitzpatrick and U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark for most
titles in 2026.
Players vote on the Jack Nicklaus Award for PGA Tour player of the
year. Scheffler has won the last four years — another would tie him
with Woods for most consecutive awards.
Taking over the top spot in career earnings was inevitable. The $40
million purse at the Tour Championship now counts as official money.
Scheffler won $10 million, pushing his career total to $130,390,661.
Woods, who never played for more than a $10 million purse during his
peak years from 1997 through 2009, had been at the top of the career
money list for nearly 26 years.
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Scottie Scheffler holds the trophy after winning the PGA Tour
Championship golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP
Photo/Mike Stewart)
It was a small slice of redemption for Scheffler,
who lost in a playoff to Hovland at the Travelers Championship, one
of his five runner-up finishes this year.
Hovland made only one birdie and closed with a 72 to finish alone in
second, worth $5 million. Most aggravating for the Norwegian was
having three putts hit the lip in a four-hole stretch on the back
nine, two of them for birdie and one for par.
“He’s just good, and he played good every day,” Hovland said. “I
could have shot 66 easily as well today. Just didn't have it. ... It
wasn’t like anybody else really played all that great in contention,
and that’s what you see — a lot of guys just gagging and throwing
up. And that’s where he just kind of stays in it and shoots a nice
score. That gets the job done.”
Scheffler had two bogeys — one an aggressive miss with a wedge from
the fairway on No. 7, the other from a gnarly lie in the rough on
the 14th — and otherwise felt he didn't miss much over a tough day
of wind and firm turf that made the landing spots feel smaller.
East Lake played to a cumulative average of 67.35 through three
rounds. On Sunday, the average score was 70.07.
Ryan Gerard, one shot behind Hovland staring out, made double bogey
on the opening hole, followed with 13 straight pars and shot 72 to
finish alone in third.
“They made it as difficult as they could today, and that’s kind of
what we were looking for,” Gerard said. “I just wasn’t on enough to
execute shots to really tucked hole locations.”
Scheffler said winning the Tour Championship for the FedEx Cup
doesn't change his outlook on the season. That's for others to
judge. Even so, he had a point to prove.
He felt as though he had underachieved in the PGA Tour postseason —
losing a six-shot lead to Rory McIlroy in 2022, not putting up much
of a fight when Hovland won in 2023 when he started with a two-shot
lead and finished 16 shots behind.
“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,” Scheffler said.
“That was my motto going into the playoffs. Maybe in years I’ve
underperformed in the postseason, and maybe this is a year I’ll
perform better than I have in the regular season.”
That he did, and the beer no doubt went down smoothly.
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