There are just 50 tour pros left in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, and they’ll venture out to Olympia Fields for a chance to clinch one of the coveted East Lake spots. The last FedEx Cup event in Chicago required a 66-foot birdie putt from Jon Rahm to beat Dustin Johnson in 2020. And after Lucas Glover’s playoff victory at the St Jude Championship, it seems like we’re setting up for yet another down-to-the-wire finish.

Speaking of Glover, the journeyman will have a chance to go back to back to back if he’s able to win the BMW Championship. It’s happened just twice on the PGA Tour since 2004. Patrick Cantlay is also looking to make some history as he’ll have a chance to win his third-straight BMW Championship, despite all taking place on different courses.

Looking to put a stop to Glover and Cantlay’s magic are some of the best tour pros the PGA has to offer, featuring 10 of the top 11 golfers in the world. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay, Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa, Matt Fitzpatrick and Wyndham Clark will all be teeing off this week. The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings at the end of the BMW Championship will cement a bid for East Lake and the Tour Championship.

The winner will receive 2,000 FedEx Cup points and a $3.6 million share of the $20 million purse.

Tee Times (all times EDT)
THURSDAY
First tee
9.26am JT Poston, Brendon Todd
9.37am Adam Svensson, Matt Fitzpatrick
9.48am Adam Hadwin, Byeong Hun An
9.59am Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose
10.10am Jordan Spieth, Sungjae Im
10.21am Emiliano Grillo, Sepp Straka
10.32am Xander Schauffele, Adam Schenk
10.43am Russell Henley, Nick Taylor
10.54am Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa
11.10am Rory McIlroy, Lucas Glover
11.21am Brian Harman, Tommy Fleetwood
11.32am Hideki Matsuyama, Tom Hoge
11.43am Cam Davis, Cameron Young
11.54am Andrew Putnam, Eric Cole
12.05pm Seamus Power, Lee Hodges
12.16pm Kurt Kitayama, Denny McCarthy
12.27pm Chris Kirk, Sam Burns
12.43pm Corey Conners, Tyrrell Hatton
12.54pm Jason Day, Collin Morikawa
1.05pm Si Woo Kim, Tom Kim
1.16pm Tony Finau, Taylor Moore
1.27pm Viktor Hovland, Wyndham Clark
1.38pm Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler
1.49pm Keegan Bradley, Rickie Fowler
2pm Harris English, Patrick Rodger

The post FedEx Cup Playoffs: BMW Championship tee times,  and preview guide appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

While most of the focus Sunday at the FedEx St Jude Championship was on the top of the leaderboard, with the joy and jubilation of Lucas Glover winning for the second time in two weeks, there was heartache and emotion toward the bottom.

Nick Hardy, winner of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with partner Davis Riley back in April, entered TPC Southwind right on the 50th spot in the FedEx Cup standings with the top 50 advancing to the BMW Championship later this week at Olympia Fields outside Chicago.

Hardy is a native of Northbrook, Illinois, which is 50 miles north or Olympia Fields and the 27-year-old so desperately wanted to qualify for the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He got off to a hot start during the final round with birdies on his first three holes and was in prime position to advance. But he bogeyed Nos. 7, 8 and 9, then double-bogeyed the par-3 11th to fall back. More birdies came at 13, 14 and 17 but Hardy drove it in the water left of the 18th fairways and his season was over. He shot a final-round 70 to tie for 49th and drop to 52nd in the FedEx Cup standings, two positions shy of Olympia Fields.

So much to be proud of.

An emotional @NickHardy8 reflects on his season coming to an end. pic.twitter.com/51XaeMwg07

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 13, 2023

“Super tough,” an emotional Hardy told the PGA Tour afterward. “I really wanted to play Chicago. Just sucks. It really sucks. It stings right now.”

The emotion then started to hit more, in an interview that lasted two minutes.

“I’m definitely just proud of my career so far,” Hardy continued. “I’m proud of how I know I’m getting better. Sometimes it’s hard to see growth in this game, but I know I’m seeing it. I hope to be out here for a long time and I know I’ll have many more opportunities. But it stings right now.”

Mackenzie Hughes was the other man to drop from the top 50 after Memphis. The two-time tour winner started the week at No. 47 and fell to No. 51, a third-round 75 the culprit. He ended the FedEx St Jude Championship in a tie for 58th place.

With two falling out, inevitably, two had to move into the top 50. Hideki Matsuyama moved from 57 to 47 in points, thanks to a final-round 65 at TPC Southwind where he played the last four holes in four-under to tie for 16th place. Cam Davis made the biggest jump, rising from 62nd to 45th in points with a sixth-place tie.

“I would say the last three Sundays in a row have all been about the same level of stress and the same level of achievement for me,” Davis said. “I’ve managed to put really good clean rounds together when the pressure has been on to keep moving forward, and yeah, it’s really satisfying to be able to know that I’ve got a tee time next week, so I can start looking forward to that.”

The post WATCH: Nick Hardy gets emotional after failing to qualify for BMW Championship near his hometown appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
One measure of athletic greatness is versatility. Golf is no different. It’s why the career Grand Slam club—membership: five—remains the most exclusive in the sport. To be one of the greats, you have to get it done everywhere. It’s one thing to win a birdie-fest. It’s quite another to win a battle of attrition.

Dustin Johnson is not one of the five to have won each of golf’s four majors. As Brooks Koepka reminded us a few weeks ago, Johnson “only” has one. But he’s one more gritty round away from pulling off a rather dramatic back-to-back in tournaments that could not be more different.

Last week, at TPC Boston, Johnson held the 54-hole lead by five at 22 under. This week, at brutal Olympia Fields, he holds a share of the 54-hole lead at one under. Hideki Matsuyama is also at one under, no one is at even, and Adam Scott, Mackenzie Hughes and Joaquin Niemann are at one over.

RELATED: When DJ’s at his best, he looks better than rest

Last week, in winning The Northern Trust by 11, Johnson became the first man to reach 30 under par at a golf course other than Kapalua. This week, at the BMW Championship, even par just might get the job done.

“I feel like it’s fairly similar,” Johnson said of his standard of play compared to a week ago after he shot a second straight one-under 69 on Saturday. “Just obviously these conditions and the greens are a lot more difficult.”

Obviously.

The scoring average on Saturday, on this par-70 layout, was 71.391—and that was more than a full shot easier than the course played on Thursday and Friday. This is shaping up to be one of the most difficult non-major PGA Tour events in history. Should even par be the winning total, it will be the first time that has happened in a non-major since 1995. If it bleeds into over-par territory, well, that hasn’t happened since the 1981 Byron Nelson.

Dustin Johnson waits with caddie and brother, Austin Johnson, on a tee during the third round of the BMW Championship. (Andy Lyons)

“It’s a completely different golf course,” Johnson said. At TPC Boston, 10 under didn’t even get you a top 25. This week, no one’s even reached five under. “Completely different conditions. It’s pretty easy to get into the mindset of four under being a good score. This is pretty much a major championship venue, and the conditions, the way it’s set up, it’s playing just like a major.”

RELATED: Jon Rahm suffered a bizarre penalty in the third round

Johnson’s triumph at TPC Boston was a tour de force, a generationally talented golfer at the absolute height of his abilities. Somewhat fitting, then, that the victory saw him re-take the world No. 1 ranking. When Johnson’s cooking like he was last week, it’s almost automatic: power fade off the tee, short iron that lands just short of pin-high, takes one bounce and stops, putt in the centre of the cup.

That kind of driving range, TrackMan-friendly golf simply isn’t possible at Olympia Fields. This course has hosted two U.S. Opens but has never played quite this difficult. It’s been lengthened since the last one—in 2003, won by Jim Furyk—the rough is just as long and, crucially, the weather has been the stuff of USGA dreams. Thursday and Friday were uncomfortably hot and humid, and the wind blew primarily from the south. There was rain in the forecast for Friday night, but it never showed. Saturday brought slightly cooler temperatures and no humidity, which only further dried out the greens, and the wind came from the north. A new challenge entirely.

And if you were expecting the tour to set things up easier on the weekend, guess again. They’re leaning into it. Everyone seems to be.

“Such a demanding golf course out there, you just have to think over every shot,” said Rory McIlroy, who had his own struggles in shooting two-over 73 to drop from first to a tie for sixth. Notice the word choice. Demanding. In golf, that’s a compliment. “You can’t have a lapse in concentration.”

Johnson, for all the good-natured ribbing he takes for not being the deepest thinker, knows his way around a vexing golf course. Knows how to maintain focus. The guy won a U.S. Open at Oakmont while in limbo over a maybe-penalty. That victory altered his legacy. A victory on Sunday, which would be the 23rd of his career, would not.

But what it would do is send a message to the rest of the handful of players vying for the title of Best in the World: Dustin Johnson can win anytime, anywhere, on any course.

The post Birdie-fest or brutal test, Dustin Johnson making bid to win back-to-back appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
Tiger Woods is on to Winged Foot.

Well, not quite yet. Woods still has one round left here at the BMW Championship, but a third-round 72 on Saturday left him at 10 over for the tournament, all but eliminating his chances of qualifying for next week’s Tour Championship. Thus, Sunday’s final stroll around a brutally difficult Olympia Fields layout will offer little more than an opportunity to build some momentum for the U.S. Open, which begins at Winged Foot in just 19 days.

Woods declined to speak to media for the second straight day, surely peeved by a triple bogey on 17 that torpedoed a pretty solid round of golf. Woods got off to a much better start on Saturday, birdieing 3 and 4 to get to two under par for the round. Despite leaving a 12-footer short for birdie at 9, he made the turn in two-under 33, no small feat on a track that has yielded just one 67 all week.

He could not overcome a wayward drive well left on 10 and made his first bogey of the day, but grinded out six straight pars to head to the 17th tee at one under for the round.

What followed was a rapid disaster, the kind that loom like landmines on courses as difficult as this one. Woods fanned a driver well right into water, then had to drop well short of the fairway because the ball crossed into the hazard way back toward the tee. From there, he tried to muscle a fairway wood but the rough grabbed the hosel and shut the clubface, sending his third shot bounding toward the 18th tee. A punch out from there trundled through the green and he was unable to hole a five-footer for double. A round-killing, triple-bogey 7. A joyless par on 18 sealed the round of two over.

It wasn’t the low-low round Woods needed to claw his way back into contention for a top-five finish, which is what he needs to get to East Lake. And yet, Saturday’s front nine was the best Woods has played all week. Most encouraging was his short game, which has looked a bit shaky in his four starts since the tour’s COVID hiatus. He started the day with a flop shot to save par on 1. He had a terrific up-and-down from a gnarly lie just over the fifth green, a good one from the bunker short right of 12 and another from a bad spot right of 14. Woods also looked generally comfortable on the greens, which the stats support—he picked up strokes on the field putting for the first time all week.

Woods likely has just one more round in this strange, truncated 2019-’20 season. Surely he wants four more after that, but he could not ask for much better U.S. Open preparation than another competitive round on a U.S. Open-ready course.

The post Late triple sinks Tiger Woods’ round and any chance at reaching Tour Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
They were supposedly playing the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields on Thursday. The proceedings, however, came a lot closer to resembling a U.S. Open, with the world’s best, at times, looking like average hacks and “good bogey” was said in all seriousness. For golf fans hoping for a little less red on the leader board compared to recent weeks, it was water in the desert.

“Yeah, it was getting close,” Adam Scott said about the U.S. Open comparisons. “If they could narrow the fairways another five yards, we’d be there. But I’m glad we’re not because I wasn’t hitting enough fairways.”

More on Olympia Fields and four other takeaways from Day 1 at the BMW Championship.

First-round scoring average at the BMW Championship (72.826) is the second-highest opening round this season: the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide (73.923)

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) August 28, 2020

The course wins Round 1
Dustin Johnson deep-sixed TPC Boston with a 30-under total last week. While record-breaking, it was not an aberration. Rather, it was the sixth time since the PGA Tour’s restart that the winning score was 19 under or lower. Yes, these guys are good … but when every week resembles the Bob Hope Classic, the fireworks lose their luster.

Thankfully, at least for one day, Olympia Fields doused the flames.

With #FirmAndFast conditions and rough thicker than deep dish pizza, Olympia Fields did not relent. Only three players broke par, the fewest in a PGA Tour event since the opening round of the 2018 U.S. Open, with Hideki Matsuyama the low man after posting a three-under 67. For context, 24 players were under par after Round 1 at the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields. Keeping it out of the long stuff was imperative, but with greens discarding anything less than true, a premium was put on angles, a sentiment usually seen at majors.

“I just mentioned that talking to a couple guys, and even yesterday, I felt like I was preparing for a major championship, namely the U.S. Open,” said Tony Finau. “I love the way the golf course is playing, extremely tough.”

Added Alex Noren: “It’s the firmest and fastest I’ve ever played it, I think, yeah. I mean, it’s fun. It’s good. It’s just you’ve got to just hit the fairways, hit the greens, otherwise it’s tricky.”

Perhaps the pins become more accessible or someone on the grounds crew leaves the sprinklers on overnight. Yet if Thursday’s test holds true, the week will revive a style of play long thought to be gone at the tour level.

Of course, the upshot to this setup was …

Traffic on the leaderboard
It’s only Thursday, so one can’t get too invested into leaderboard gazing. In that same breath, Day 1 felt less like a tournament, and more like a tryout.

By nightfall, the question wasn’t who is in the mix but who isn’t, as 44 players are within six shots of the lead. Even that warrants a caveat, as the BMW has no cut thus offering a bounce-back route for guys like Jon Rahm (five over) and Collin Morikawa (six over).

Which is not a bad thing! Weekend golf has a little less punch when only half a dozen players are in the hunt. However, it didn’t feel like much happened on Thursday, either. There was a lot of defensive middle-of-the-green approaches and sensible lag putts, if you catch our drift. And yes, we realize the hypocrisy between this section and the proceeding one. Guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too. (Awful phrase, by the way. Why would you want cake if you can’t eat it? We digress.)

Viktor’s laser
My 34th birthday is next week, and I can now check off “See a UFO” from the bucket list.

How else would you classify this driver-off-the-deck delight from Viktor Hovland, reaching the green from 312 yards out:

What. A. Shot. ?

Viktor Hovland goes driver off the deck to set himself up nicely on the green.pic.twitter.com/meBc2Jou4R

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) August 27, 2020

That, my friends, is not of this world.

Hovland struggled at the end, but still finished with a one-over 71.

Stacy Revere
Tiger Woods had a solid round going until bogeys on his last three holes resulted in a three-over 73.

Tiger stumbles at finish
Through 15 holes Woods was rolling, boasting an even round with two birdies and two bogeys. Unfortunately for the 15-time major winner, his prospects for a solid BMW finish that could help him advance to the Tour Championship took a hit after a bogey-bogey-bogey finish left Woods with a three-over 73.

“Not the way I wanted to finish,” Woods said afterwards, “but the golf course is playing difficult for sure.”

The short game again plagued Woods, ranking 51st in sg/around-the-green and 50th in sg/putting. But the driving wasn’t much better, missing 8 of 14 fairways on the afternoon.

Beginning the week at No. 57 in the FedEx Cup standings, Woods likely needs a T-4 finish or better to advance to the season-finale at East Lake next week. Again, he’s only six strokes back of the lead, but he’s also T-35. In short, he’ll need something special over the next three days to punch his Tour Championship ticket.

Finau, Woods speak on player protests
For the second straight day NBA players sat out playoff games in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in Kenosha, Wis., as he attempted to enter a vehicle with his children in the car. Athletes from the MLB, NHL, MLS and professional tennis joined the NBA by sitting out their respective contests.

Following his rounds at Olympia Fields, Tony Finau said boycotting Thursday’s round was not on the table, but expressed his support for those striking.

“I understood the magnitude of what the NBA was doing and what they were boycotting for, and I know the PGA Tour is in full support of that, and again, it’s a conversation that’s uncomfortable, sensitive for our country, but if we’re not willing to have those, I don’t think we can move forward as a country,” Finau said. “I’m open to having a conversation with anybody on the issue, and again, I think we’re in full support of what the NBA has done.”

Woods also said he never thought about sitting. “No, I talked to the commissioner, and they were on board. Obviously he released his statement, and all the guys were on board,” Woods said. “So no, obviously there was talk about it because of obviously what happened, but we’re all on board, on the same page.”

On Thursday morning, the PGA Tour released a statement expressing their support for the social movements across the country.

“Sports have always had the power to inspire and unify,” a tour statement read, “and we remain hopeful that together, we will achieve change.”

The post U.S. Open conditions at Olympia Fields, Tiger’s rough finish and three other Thursday takeaways at the BMW appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

While Olympia Fields has hosted the U.S. Amateur and the Women’s PGA Championship in recent years, the Chicago course hasn’t been home to a men’s professional event since the 2003 U.S. Open. According to various outlets, that will change in 2020.

The Fried Egg and Chicago Tribune reported on Saturday that Olympia Fields is jumping into the BMW Championship rotation. Formerly known as the Western Open (which went to Olympia Fields five times), the tournament has been played in Illinois every other year since 2012, with next year’s event coming to Medinah after a visit to Aronimink in Pennsylvania this summer.

Along with its Western Open past, Olympia Fields has hosted two U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships. It was also the site of Bryson Dechambeau’s U.S. Am victory in 2015, while Danielle Kang enjoyed her major breakthrough there in 2017.

Olympia Fields ranked sixth (North) and 10th (south) in the latest Golf Digest Best in State rankings.

The post Reports: Olympia Fields to host its first professional men’s event since 2003 U.S. Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.