ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy pulled off an improbable comeback, rallying from six strokes back to knock off World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler with a final round 4-under 66 at East Lake Golf Club to win the Tour Championship.
McIlroy became the first player to win the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour’s season-long competition, for the third time. He did it in dramatic fashion, authoring the largest final-round comeback in Tour Championship history for a one-stroke victory at 21 under over Scheffler and Sungjae Im.
The Northern Irishman spotted Scheffler six strokes in the staggered-start scoring system implemented at the Tour Championship. McIlroy gave him an even bigger head start by pulling his opening tee shot of the tournament on Thursday out of bounds and made triple bogey at the first and bogey at the second to fall 10 strokes behind.
“I got off to the worst start possible,” said McIlroy, who said he thought of South Korea’s Tom Kim, who opened the Wyndham Championship with a quadruple bogey and went on to win.
“It is possible,” McIlroy said after rallying to shoot 67 on Thursday. “Anything can be done.”
He chipped away at Scheffler’s lead with another 67 on Friday and then made his move on Saturday. After the third round was suspended for the day due to lightning, McIlroy returned Sunday morning and made birdies on his final two holes to cap off a round of 7-under 63.
“It’s a perfect way to end the round,” McIlroy said.
Still Scheffler, who made four birdies in his final six holes of the third round, entered the final round with a six-stroke cushion. It disappeared quickly.
“Everybody talks about how fun it is to win. It’s not,” NBC’s Paul Azinger said. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to do. It’s only after the fact that it’s fun.”
On a bright, steamy day, McIlroy stumbled again at the first hole but bounced back with four birdies in a five-hole stretch beginning at the third. Trying for his fifth win of the season, Scheffler struggled to three bogeys in his first six holes.
“This is a disaster,” Azinger said after Scheffler flubbed a flop shot into a greenside bunker at No. 6. “It’s hard to watch this happen to a guy of this pedigree, this caliber. This was always going to be a hard day for him, a hard weekend, and he’s really feeling the heat now.”
McIlroy made birdie one hole later to tie for the lead. But Scheffler wouldn’t go down without a fight. He stuck his approach to 5 feet at No. 8 to…
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