Viktor Hovland completed two spectacular weeks of golf on Sunday, winning the PGA Tour Championship to claim the FedEx Cup.
Hovland thus pocketed US$18 million. This astronomical sum is in addition to the approximately US$3.6 million earned by his victory in the BMW Championship last week.
“The game plan was to try to play as boring as possible, play it like Tiger back in the day when he would post a 69 or 70 in a major championship and walk away with the victory,” Hovland said.
With a mind-boggling minus-27, Hovland edged American Xander Schauffele by five strokes. The latter tried everything to increase the pressure after starting the day six shots behind the leader.
“I thought a 62 would have been enough to get me close. He played incredibly well. He hit some serious putts, he just played like a champ.” Schauffele said.
“I can hold my head up high. I haven’t had this much fun losing in a long time. The feelings are strange. I played 62. I lost by five.”
“Simply, congratulations to Hovi. He played very well to get into this position, it just adds icing on the cake for him and his team.” Schauffele added.
Except that Hovland was once again intractable even in the face of the moment, especially on the greens, when he made several crucial putts.
Both players showed a cumulative 261 (minus-19) in this tournament. As the second seed, however, Hovland started the first round at 8 under, compared to Schauffele at 3 under.
Author of four birdies on his first six holes, the champion finished the final round with a score of minus-6, without committing the slightest bogey.
At 25, he becomes the third youngest golfer to win the FedEx Cup. He is guaranteed a full exemption until the conclusion of the 2028 PGA schedule.
Far behind in third place, we found the American Wyndham Clark, five shots behind Schauffele at minus-22 overall.
The top-5 was completed by three-time FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland (minus-14) and American Patrick Cantlay (minus-13).
Additionally to McIlroy, other FedEx Cup winners from outside the United States have been Vijay Singh (2008), Henrik Stenson (2013) and Justin Rose (2018).
