It’s been another pretty busy week in golf.
The FedExCup Playoffs are underway, Scottie Scheffler is (perhaps unsurprisingly) sitting exactly where everyone expected him to be, Rory McIlroy is back after skipping the opening playoff event last year, and there are yet more questions being asked about what’s going on at LIV Golf.
There was also a great story over on the DP World Tour, where Jeff Winther managed to win his national open in Denmark after a pretty chaotic final round.
So, if you haven’t had time to follow everything this week, here’s what you need to know.
The Big One: Scheffler Leads the FedExCup Playoffs
It feels like we’re reaching the point where seeing Scottie Scheffler at the top of a leaderboard barely qualifies as news anymore.
The FedExCup Playoffs kicked off this week at TPC Southwind in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, and Scheffler went into Sunday with a two-shot lead over Sam Burns and Sungjae Im.
It hasn’t all been completely straightforward.
Scheffler had a difficult start to his third round on Saturday but, as he seems to do more often than not, found a way to turn things around. He eventually signed for a two-under 68, which was enough to keep him in control heading into the final round.
His Friday round was a completely different story.
Scheffler shot an incredible 61, tying the course record at TPC Southwind and putting himself right into the middle of the tournament.
The slightly different thing about this week is that it isn’t just another PGA Tour event.
This is the first week of the FedExCup Playoffs.
Seventy players qualified for Memphis after the regular season finished at the Wyndham Championship last weekend. Once the FedEx St. Jude is finished, only the top 50 in the standings move on to the BMW Championship.
That basically means there are two tournaments happening at once.
At the top, you’ve got Scheffler, Burns, Im and the other contenders trying to win the actual tournament.
Further down the leaderboard, there are players who probably have very little chance of winning but are desperately trying to scrape together enough points to keep their season going for another week.
A couple of shots here or there can literally end someone’s season.
That’s what makes this part of the year quite good to watch. Even if the tournament at the top starts to get away from someone, there’s still plenty happening further down the leaderboard.
And then there’s Scheffler himself.
His consistency at this point is getting a little ridiculous.
Golf is a sport where even the best players in the world can disappear for a few weeks. Your putting goes cold, the driver stops behaving or you simply get a couple of bad breaks and suddenly you’re nowhere near contention.
Scheffler just keeps turning up.
It doesn’t mean he wins every week, obviously, but the frequency with which he gives himself an opportunity on Sunday is probably the most impressive thing about his game.
As the FedExCup Playoffs get underway, everyone else may once again find themselves trying to chase him down.
Once Memphis is finished, the top 50 head to the BMW Championship. From there, the field gets cut again before the Tour Championship decides the FedExCup winner.
So we’re essentially into the PGA Tour’s end-of-season sprint now.
And Scheffler is already at the front.
Rory’s Back: And That’s Probably Good News for the Playoffs
Rory McIlroy is also back in Memphis this week after deciding to skip the opening FedExCup playoff event last year.
His absence last season caused a fair bit of discussion.
The FedExCup Playoffs are supposed to be the PGA Tour’s postseason. The whole selling point is that you get the best players from the season competing against each other over a condensed run of tournaments.
When one of the biggest names in golf decides not to turn up to the first one, it obviously takes something away from that.
This year, McIlroy has changed his mind.
He’s spoken about conversations with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp playing a part in the decision, alongside his own schedule and preparation.
Whatever the exact reason, it’s good for the tournament.
If the PGA Tour wants people to genuinely care about the playoffs, you need players like McIlroy and Scheffler in the field.
It sounds obvious, but that hasn’t always been the case.
For us watching at home, it should mean the next few weeks feature some seriously strong fields as the PGA Tour season reaches its conclusion.
So… What’s Going On With LIV?
Another week, another slightly confusing LIV Golf story.
Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin and Adrian Meronk have all committed to playing in the British Masters.
On its own, that’s not particularly interesting.
The problem is that the British Masters was supposed to clash with LIV Golf’s Team Championship in Michigan.
Reports have since suggested that the LIV event is no longer going ahead, with players reportedly being told about the cancellation and ticket sales unavailable.
At the time of writing, LIV hadn’t formally confirmed the cancellation, but having several of its players suddenly available for the British Masters certainly doesn’t do much to quieten the speculation.
It raises another question about what LIV actually looks like going forward.
The team element has always been a big part of what LIV has tried to do differently. Rather than simply creating another individual golf tour, they’ve pushed the idea of franchises, teams and a season-ending Team Championship.
If one of the biggest events in that format disappears, it’s naturally going to lead to questions.
Add that to all the ongoing discussion around the future of LIV’s biggest names, its relationship with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, and the wider attempt to somehow bring professional golf back together, and there’s still an awful lot that needs sorting out.
A few years into all of this, professional golf still feels strangely unsettled.
We’ll see what happens next.
A Brilliant Home Win for Jeff Winther
One of the nicer stories of the week came from Denmark.
Jeff Winther won the Danish Golf Championship at Great Northern, taking his national open in front of a home crowd.
And the final round was anything but boring.
Eight different players held at least a share of the lead at some point on Sunday, so for a long time it really could have gone to anyone.
Eventually, Winther was the one who managed to get it done.