Scottie Scheffler took the first FedEx Cup play-off event, and Rory McIlroy finished 66th at the St Jude Championship after a week in which he never found a round under par. McIlroy was 25 shots behind Scheffler, who won at 17 under, and left TPC Southwind saying he felt far away from where he needed to be.
That is the jolt at the start of the Rory McIlroy FedEx Cup playoffs: the 30-man Tour Championship is already secured, but the form is not. McIlroy had not played competitively since the Open Championship in July before this week, and the rust showed immediately. He started with a six on the par-four opening hole, then ranked 62nd out of 68 players in strokes gained from tee to green, a blunt measure of how often he was fighting the course rather than controlling it.
Scheffler, by contrast, led by two overnight and never gave that edge back in the final round. He signed for a four-under 66 and outscored Sam Burns by seven shots on the day, a reminder that the first of the three FedEx Cup play-off events can change the mood of the whole chase in a single afternoon. Justin Rose also finished strongly with a six-under 64 to end the tournament at level par, but the week belonged to Scheffler, whose first victory since January arrived at the right time.
McIlroy did not hide how far off he felt. “I’m so far away from where I need to be to even feel like I have a chance. I’ve just got to keep working and hope it turns around a little bit,” he said. He added that, with not many reps behind him, the week seemed to expose a swing that kept drifting away from him. “Obviously didn’t come in here with a ton of reps, (it) almost felt like the more the week went on the more I felt lost with my golf swing a little bit,” he said.
There were flashes, but they never became a round. McIlroy made four birdies in a seven-hole stretch on the back nine, then closed with successive bogeys. The shape of the scorecard matched the larger problem he described himself: “To me it’s more about the execution of what I’m doing right now, and the execution wasn’t there this week.” A player can survive one bad hole or one poor stretch. McIlroy spent four days trying to locate a version of his game that never fully appeared.
The consequence is simple. He is still in position for the Tour Championship, but he now has only a short window to make the swing feel like his again before next Thursday. McIlroy said he expects to work pretty hard between now and then to feel ready to compete next week, and that is the real story from this opening playoff test: the standings may be safe, but the game is not.
