9 Days with the Lead, Cantlay Wins $15 Million; Van Rooyen Ties for 22nd ($466,667)

September 6, 2021 | 8 min.


ATLANTA -- Patrick Cantlay shot 66 in the third round of the BMW Championship a week ago Saturday. That put him in a tie for the lead, along with Bryson DeChambeau. He beat DeChambeau in a six-hole playoff the next day to win the tournament, which made him the No. 1 seed for this week's Tour Championship. According to the staggered-start format that was implemented for the Tour Championship in 2019, the No. 1 player begins the tournament at 10 under par. No. 2 starts at 8 under, No. 3 at 7 under and so on, down to the No. 26 through 30 seeds, who all start at even par.

So in effect, Cantlay was sitting at the top of the leaderboard for five consecutive nights before the Tour Championship began. That's a lot of pressure, considering that there is a $15 million reward for winning the Tour Championship, which is the last of the three tournaments in the FedEx Cup Playoffs (The Northern Trust, BMW Championship and Tour Championship). 

On Sunday, Cantlay did precisely that. Although things looked a little dicey a couple of times down the stretch, he never relinquished the lead during the four rounds of the 50th -- and final -- tournament of the 2020-21 PGA Tour season. He closed with a 1-under-par 69 at East Lake Golf Club, for a 72-hole total of 269, and given the head start (10 under) that his No. 1 status awarded him, he finished at 21 under par. 

That was good for a one-stroke victory over Jon Rahm. So Cantlay got the FedEx Cup -- and $15 million.

It was his fourth victory of 2020-21.

Rahm has been the No. 1 player in the world since June. He's had six consecutive top-10 finishes since he had to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament with a six-shot lead, because he tested positive for Covid 19 (a tournament that was then won, in Rahm's absence, by Cantlay). During that stretch, Rahm won the U.S. Open and finished third in the British Open. But he couldn't make the putts he needed to catch Cantlay on Sunday. Or the chip for eagle that he needed on the final hole. He made no bogeys but could conjure up only two birdies and had to settle for a 68. That put him at 266, which matched Kevin Na for the best 72-hole aggregate of the week. Having started in fourth place at 6 under, he ended up at 20 under.

It was worth $5 million to Rahm.

As for Na, he played the last 57 holes of the tournament without a bogey and shot 67 Sunday on his way to 266. He finished at 16 under and made $4 million. 

Justin Thomas birdied the last hole for a 70 and got to minus 15 with that, which earned him $3 million. He, like Cantlay, was at 269 for the week. 

Erik Van Rooyen, the former Minnesota State Amateur champion (2012 at Hastings CC) and University of Minnesota star, came into the tournament seeded No. 27 and, consequently, started at even par. A second-round 73 meant that he wasn't going to get a check with six zeroes on it, but he rallied with a 68 on Saturday, and he birdied the last three holes on Sunday for a 67, which moved him up into a tie for 22nd in the 30-player field (Brooks Koepke withdrew because of a wrist injury; so there were 29 guys who finished the tournament), and that was worth a tidy little $466,667. 

That doesn't all count as official money, but you can still spend it. In any case, Van Rooyen, who was No. 133 on the PGA Tour money list on Aug. 1, with just over $850,000 earned in 22 events, made twice that much in the five weeks since then. During that time, the 31-year-old South African native won once (Barricuda Championship), finished in the top 10 in each of the first two tournaments in the FedEx Playoffs, and he wound up with more than $2.5 million for the full season.

While he was at it, he improved his Official World Golf Ranking from  No. 110 to No. 53. That matters because anyone ranked in the top 50 at the end of the year gets an automatic invitation to the next year's Masters. Van Rooyen had the misfortune of being No. 51 in the OWGR's at the end of 2020. 

Cantlay, 29, and Rahm, 26, had separated themselves from the pack by the end of Saturday's third round at East Lake -- Cantlay at 20 under par and Rahm at 18 under -- and it was a two-horse race on Sunday right from the start. But there was never a change of positions. It was Cantley in first, and Rahm in second all the way to the finish line.

The size of Cantlay's lead was the only thing that changed. Cantlay birdied the 204-yard, par-3 second hole to go ahead by three, but he bogeyed the fifth (443 yards, par 4) and Rahm birdied it, reducing the lead to one. While Rahm was making pars on the last four holes of the front nine, Cantlay was making a two-putt birdie at the par-5 sixth (505 yards) and a bogey at the par-3 ninth (232 yards).

Cantlay put on a spectacular display of clutch putting in his victory over DeChambeau at the BMW, and he made several clutch putts again on Sunday, which enabled him to keep his one-stroke lead as he played the first six holes on the back nine. Then, at the 458-yard, par-4 16th, he hit a 9-iron to 6 feet and made that putt, as well. 

Once again, he had a two-stroke lead, but it didn't last long. Cantlay hit seven tee shots right of his targets in the final round (two of those on par 3's), and that's what he did with his tee shot at the 17th (423 yards, par 4). The ball bounced off a tree, and he had an open shot at the green from the rough. But he caught a flier with his approach, and it air-mailed the green. A weak flop shot left him still not on the green, and his chip shot came up 6 feet short of the hole.

Rahm hit a wedge to 11 feet at the 17th. So there was a possibility of a three-shot swing. If Rahm could  make his birdie putt and Cantlay missed his little bogey knee-knocker, Rahm would be leading. Instead, Rahm missed, and Cantlay made his 6-footer for bogey -- yet another clutch putt -- thereby retaining a one-shot lead with one hole to go.

Neither Cantlay nor Rahm could have played the 580-yard, par-5 18th hole any better than they did on Sunday. It's a difficult driving hole, but both players hit massive drives into the fairway. Rahm, whose drive went 345 yards (downhill), launched a 240-yard 5-iron that nearly hit the pin. He was unlucky in that it rolled about 2 feet too far, and didn't catch the slope at the back of the green, which would have left him with an eagle putt of less than 20 feet. Instead, his ball ended up in the light rough just over the green.

Cantlay hit a 360-yard drive, and followed it with a 220-yard 6-iron that finished almost exactly pin high, 11 feet to the right of the cup. 

Rahm needed to hole his chip for a chance at extra holes, and he came close. The ball missed the cup by a couple of inches, leaving him a 2-footer for his birdie. But that meant Cantlay needed only to two-putt, and the former UCLA All-American -- and No. 1-ranked amateur in the world -- stopped his first putt within 6 inches of the cup to secure his victory.

The winner of the Tour Championship was determined in the usual way (low score for 72 holes) during the first three decades of the event's existance (1987 to 2018), before the staggered-start format was implemented. And the bonus money was handed out based on FedEx points that had been accumulated over the course of the entire PGA Tour season.

As an example, in 2018, Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship at East Lake with a 269 (worth $1,620,000), but Justin Rose, who tied for fourth in the tournament, finished first on the points list and won the FedEx Cup, which was then worth $10 million. 

If the winner were still determined the old way, Rahm and Na would have tied for first with their 266's on Sunday -- and played off for the Tour Championship trophy. In addition, Rahm would have received a bonus of $3 million for finishing second on the FedEx Cup points list. Na's bonus for being third on the list would have been $2 million. Cantlay's 269 would have put him in a tie for fifth in the tournament standings, along with Thomas and Xander Schauffele. That would have been good for $372,000 -- plus the old $10 million bonus.

Van Rooyen's 277 would have put him in 16th place. He would have made $190,800 for that, but the bonuses went only to the top 10 on the points list. So he would have missed out on that.   
 

Tour Championship

At East Lake 

Par 70, 7,400 yards

Atlanta

Final results 


1. Patrick Cantlay            $15 million     67-66-67-69--269

2. Jon Rahm                      $5 million     65-65-68-68--266

3. Kevin Na                        $4 million      66-67-66-67--266

4. Justin Thomas               $3 million      67-67-65-70--269

T5. Xander Schauffele       $2.2 million   66-68-70-65--269

T5. Viktor Hovland             $2.2 million   66-68-70-65--269

7. Bryson DeChambeau    $1.3 million    69-67-72-66--274

8. Dustin Johnson              $1.1 million    68-68-67-67--272

T22. Erik Van Rooyen         $466,667    69-73-67-67--277

   



 

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