BMW Championship Recap: Thomas Ends Year-Plus Winless Streak

We could talk about Justin Thomas winning the BMW Championship and looking every bit as strong and formidable as Medinah looked feeble and powerless. And we will. For a bit. (So our editor can write a headline.) But it seems everyone is already looking ahead to the Tour Championship and with it, the newfangled scoring system.

Briefly, Thomas.

It sure seemed as if Thomas was too good to have gone winless for this long, a little more than a year since he captured the old WGC-Bridgestone at Firestone. On the other hand, aren't we all thinking the same thing about Jordan Spieth, and it's been more than two years since he last won?

Thomas did have a bit of an injury, his wrist, but the bulk of his problem had been putting. At Medinah, he was able to simply bomb his way around the course and, with the greens so small, it masked his putting issues. Or maybe it's more proper to says he putted better there. A lot of terrible putters lined the top of the leaderboard.

So after a three-stroke victory over Patrick Cantlay, Thomas now heads to East Lake already holding a two-shot advantage.

To summarize, The PGA Tour no longer wants the "confusion" of having one golfer win the Tour Championship and another win the FedEx Cup. So they've now made it that whoever wins the tournament also wins the playoffs. Yet they needed to give something to the players who have done best leading up to East Lake – points. The one with the most points starts out in the lead.

Thomas will hit his first tee ball on Thursday with a score of 10-under and Cantlay will be at 8-under, followed by Brooks Koepka, at 7-under. Patrick Reed at 6-under and Rory McIlroy at 5-under. After that, sixth through 10th place will start at 4-under going all the way back in groups of five till 26th through 30th starts at even par.

Really, what other sporting event has ever begun with someone already in the lead?

We were wondering how DraftKings would handle it. The DK board has Thomas at a whopping $15,500 – talk about doing a double take – which is about $4,000 more than the top guy gets most weeks. So it's blatantly clear what DraftKings thinks about the Tour Championship being contested on a level playing field. Then comes Cantlay at $12,400 and Koepka at $12,200, both higher than the usual top guy, with McIlroy at $10,600 and Reed at $10,200. At the other end, it dips all the way to $5,000, a number so low we'd never seen it before.

Some golf folk took to Twitter saying they like the new setup. Maybe. But let's see how they feel after this plays out. Because in all likelihood the guy who posts the best 72-hole score is not gonna be the guy deemed the tournament winner. Again, where have you seen that before in the annals of sports?

We'll ask one more question: Imagine if the PGA Tour had enacted this setup a year ago? Because then Tiger Woods never would've won the Tour Championship. Wrap your head around that one.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Qualifying for Tour Championship

Three golfers climbed into the top-30 at the last possible moment to qualify for East Lake. In a way, Hideki Matsuyama's career has mirrored that of Spieth over the past couple of years. He was never No. 1, but he was a top-five player and he last won the week after Spieth last won at the 2017 Open Championship, at the 2017 WGC-Bridgestone. Like Spieth, he tumbled into the 30s in the OWGR. But now Matsuyama is up to 26th, and his solo third at the BMW was his best showing since that 2017 win. … Even though Jason Kokrak has had many finishes better than his T19 at Medinah, getting to East Lake could be viewed as the pinnacle of his career to date. Kokrak is 34 years old, is a nonwinner in 209 career starts and has never played in the Masters. Now, he will. … The third guy to advance was Lucas Glover, and what an accomplishment that is for someone who experienced very public personal problems last year and had to go to the Korn Ferry Tour to keep his card. This will be Glover's first visit to East Lake in a decade, since his 2009 U.S. Open-winning season.

Missing the Tour Championship

When three guys get in, three fall out. Shane Lowry can be excused for tying for 48th at the BMW. He's still on Cloud 9 from winning the Open Championship. … Very simply, Andrew Putnam needed a good week to advance and he didn't get it. He's not a top-30 golfer, and it showed. … Likewise for Harold Varner III, who nonetheless made his season a success last week when he tied for third at the Northern Trust, his best showing ever on the PGA Tour.

Presidents Cup

Bryson DeChambeau tried mightily to not only fall out of the top-30 but also the top-eight in the Presidents Cup standings. He failed at both, probably because he simply ran out of holes. So DeChambeau will not only be going to East Lake but to Australia, along with seven other automatic qualifiers: Thomas, Cantlay, Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Xander Schauffele and Webb Simpson. We won't know Tiger Woods' four captain's picks till probably November. Tony Finau and Gary Woodland were ninth and 10th on the points list, so conventional wisdom says they will get selected. But it's hard for us to envision a team without international-team veterans Patrick Reed, who won last week; Rickie Fowler, who was close behind in 11th place; and Jordan Spieth, who was the second-biggest point earner for the Americans at last year's Ryder Cup. We'll believe they won't be on the team when we see it.

Tiger Woods
There's really not much to say that wasn't said already last week, and in prior weeks. The Masters took everything out of Woods. Of course, it was worth it, but his game and his season were not the same afterward. And now he won't get to defend his title at East Lake. Woods looked decent at Medinah, tying for 37th, which saw him fall to No. 8 in the OWGR. While some will view that as a disappointment, we think it offers hope for next season. He played four rounds and didn't appear injured. By the time next year's bigger tournaments roll around, he really, finally should be recovered from the Masters. And maybe contend for titles again. We won't see Woods again till the new event in Japan in late October, then again at his Hero tournament in December. And his status for the Presidents Cup in December is up in the air.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth never was in the conversation at Medinah. He tied with Woods for 37th and thus missed the Tour Championship for a second straight year, which is unfathomable for the former world No. 1. Spieth continues to say he's close, whatever that means. We don't know when we'll see Spieth again, but he'll have to play a bit in the fall season to show he's worthy of a Presidents Cup captain's pick.

Jason Day
Day and caddie Stevie Williams parted ways after 20 minutes. Day then went out and tied for 52nd at Medinah, showing that the caddie was not the real issue with Day. He didn't even make the top-8 on the weak International Presidents Cup team, though he surely will be among Ernie Els' captain's picks. Still, Day will now have to go to Plan C next season to resurrect his lost game.

Korn Ferry Playoffs

In some ways, the Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship in Columbus, Ohio, was more intriguing than Thomas running away at the BMW.

Scottie Scheffler, who was the low amateur at the 2017 U.S. Open, had already locked up his PGA Tour card for next season by finishing third on the regular-season money list. But he came from behind to win for the second time this season. The 23-year-old Texan surely should be on your radar for next season.

There was a three-way tie for second, and Beau Hossler, Brendan Todd and Ben Taylor, an Englishman who attended LSU, all got their cards. Hossler recently finished outside the top-125, so it was a quick return for him. On the other hand, the 34-year-old Todd had been floundering for years, having played only 26 total PGA Tour events the past three years. At 27, Taylor will not be very young for a Tour rookie; it took him three years to get off the secondary tour.

Viktor Hovland did not lock up his card. But he tied for 11th and is in good shape heading into the final two playoff events.

Czech Masters

There was a pretty interesting development on the European Tour as former top-25 player Thomas Pieters won for the first time in three years. The Belgian, who is still only 27, saw his world ranking plummet over the past 12 months, tumbling outside the top-100. While this win was hardly against a strong field – most of the top Euros were at the BMW – it's a huge step for Pieters to turn things around. He's back up to 84th OWGR. Young Spaniard Adri Arnaus notched his third runner-up in six months to move to a career-high 105th OWGR, and he is someone to remember.