OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Scottie Scheffler’s dominance of the golf world continued unabated Sunday at Caves Valley Golf Club as the No. 1 golfer on the planet overcame a four-shot deficit to best tournament-long leader Robert MacIntyre and win the 2025 BMW Championship. Capturing the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, he picked up his fifth win of the year second at a big-money PGA Tour event to go along with the pair of major championships he claimed this season (PGA Championship, Open Championship).
Scheffler not only takes home a $3.6 million winner’s share for standing atop the leaderboard at the BMW Championship, cementing the top spot in the FedEx Cup standings earns him a $5 million bonus ahead of the Tour Championship where he will look to become the first golfer in history to go back-to-back at the season finale.
Scheffler has now won 12 PGA Tour events in the last two years along with an Olympic gold medal and another victory at the Hero World Challenge. That makes him the first golfer since Tiger Woods to post consecutive seasons with five or more victories on the PGA Tour.
While MacIntyre coughed up the significant advantage he held most of the week, his second-place finish just outside Baltimore rocketed him 11 spots up the FedEx Cup standings to No. 9 for the season. Rory McIlroy struggled to find birdies all week but will enter the Tour Championship in the second spot after a T12 finish at Caves Valley.
Scheffler cemented his victory with this incredible chip on the 17th, notching a birdie to ensure MacIntyre had no chance of surpassing him. Grade: A+
2. Robert MacIntyre (-13): Stating after one of his rounds that, when his putter is rolling, there may not be many who can beat him, MacIntyre saw the inverse of that happen Sunday as he opened the door for the world No. 1 to march through. The left hander hit only one fairway on his front nine (with an iron in hand) and had a case of the rights with the big stick off the tee. This hindered his chances on approach and made it so many of those high leverage putts were not for birdie but rather for par. He trailed by one stroke with four holes to play but missed an 8-foot birdie look and watched as Scheffler rolled his in from a similar distance to all but seal the deal. Grade: A
T8. Rickie Fowler (-7): Fowler started the week barely inside the top 50 and started the final day barely outside the top 30. The former Players Championship winner got rolling around the turn with five birdies in a seven-hole stretch to reach 10 under for the tournament. He was projected to move to No. 25 in the FedEx Cup standings when the mistakes begin to compound. A bogey-birdie exchanged occurred on Nos. 12-13 before a bogey-double bogey run from the middle of the fairway on Nos. 14-15 all but sunk his chances. While Fowler played his way into the signature events in 2026, he had a chance to add his name to major championship fields had he qualified for the Tour Championship. Now, he’ll have to find another path to the four biggest events on the calendar as he is not qualified for them yet. Grade: A-
T12. Rory McIlroy (-3): It felt like every time McIlroy took a step forward, it was only a matter of time before he took a couple steps back. The world No. 2 carded four double bogeys and a boatload of bogeys on the week to go along with 17 birdies and an eagle. The scoring prowess was there, but if he is to win his fourth FedEx Cup crown next week at East Lake, he will need to clean up the mistakes and sharpen his iron play. There was perhaps some competitive rust early in the tournament given his lack of reps since The Open.
“The game was awful for the first six holes and then actually felt like I found something, especially on the back nine there,” McIlroy said. “So definitely something to build off going into next week. This week was [a consequence of] my three weeks off. I really didn’t do anything in those three weeks. I was probably expecting too much to get in contention, but there was glimmers of really good stuff in there this week. As I said, I felt like I found a bit of a groove over the last nine holes, so certainly something to build off going into the Tour Championship next week.” Grade: B-
T28. Xander Schauffele (+3): The first year in which the Tour Championship will see every player start from the same point, Schauffele will be nowhere to be found. Missing the postseason finale for the first time in his career, the two-time major champion was never able to get anything going outside of Baltimore where he entered the week at No. 43 in the season-long race. Missing time early in the year due to injury, he was never able to replicate the form from his career year in 2024. Everything was just slightly off — he made more mistakes, missed more putts, and his driver was far looser than a season ago. Schauffele had previously won the Tour Championship his rookie season and shot the lowest 72-hole total at East Lake during the staggered start era.
“Everyone out here is trying really hard,” Schauffele said. “There’s nothing worse than trying your hardest and playing like ass. It’s the worst combo. Some of us do it, some of us don’t. It’s been a while since I have, and I did it for a few weeks now, and it sucked. It’s going to be nice to sit back and be at home and away from golf.” Grade: C-
T33. Chris Gotterup (+6): The Scottish Open winner entered the week inside the top 30 but quickly needed to play offense after a slow start saw his name drift outside the projected cut-off point. Gotterup got things going on Sunday as he was 3 under through his first 15 holes but was unable to take advantage of the par-5 16th and dropped a shot on the difficult par-3 17th. For much of the afternoon, it appeared Gotterup would fall on the wrong side of the number, but when others stumbled, he started to climb and so much so that he snuck onto the tee sheet at the Tour Championship.
“I want to give myself another chance to play well and climb the Ryder Cup rankings and all that stuff,” Gotterup said. “But if I go home today or if I play next week, I’ve had a great year regardless. We were talking the other day, like if we were a month out and you said you were going to be here with a chance to fight for East Lake, you would have signed for that. I would have liked to have played better these last couple of weeks, but all things considered, big picture, it’s been a good season.” Grade: D+
