Hovland seals successful season with FedEx Cup finale win, earns $18 million bonus

Form man Viktor Hovland smashed aside a high-quality field, playing some of the best golf of his life, to win the season-ending finale, the Tour Championship and cap a phenomenal two weeks with the FedEx Cup title and a healthy $18 million bonus in Atlanta on Sunday.

The second seed started his run on the final day with a six-shot lead over Xander Schauffele and was challenged strongly especially over the first nine boles by the Tokyo Olympic champion, but refused to even acknowledge the pressure, bringing in a 7-under par 63 that was good enough to give him a five-shot win.

It was the fourth successive round in the sixties (68-64-66-63) by the 25-year-old Norwegian at East Lake. “It's pretty surreal to be standing here right now,” Hovland said afterwards. “I played basically my best golf the last two weeks and it couldn't have happened at a better moment.

“It's been a great year, just kind of -- I feel like I've taken a lot of steps this season, contending in more major championships, I finally won in the US, I won a big tournament, Jack's event, and honestly, after that I felt like I've gotten so much better and it was very pleasing to see.

“And then obviously the last couple weeks have just superseded that. It’s been pretty surreal. It seems like -- obviously you dream about it, but these things happen when you don’t really expect them to, so it was -- yeah, it’s just awesome.”

In all, the Norwegian won three titles in the just-concluded PGA Tour season, the Memorial to start with, the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields last week and the finale in Atlanta. Doing so made Hovland just the fourth to win the BMW Championship and FedEx Cup in the same season after Tiger Woods (2007, 2009), Billy Horschel (2014) and Patrick Cantlay (2021).

Before that though, Schauffele piled on the pressure early and at one point, cut the lead to three shots with the final seven holes to play but Hovland effortlessly staved off the challenge with a 25-foot par putt on hole 14 before burying a 10-foot birdie putt on 16.

Hovland later credited Schauffele for extending the final day battle. “Obviously it was sweet to make a birdie on the first hole and make a really clutch par save on No. 2. After that, I felt really in control of my game.

“But even being -- I think I was 4-under through 6, and even then Xander just kept pouring it on and suddenly after I missed those couple of short birdie putts on the back nine, early on the back nine, suddenly the lead was at three, and if I miss that putt on 14, it's suddenly two.

“So, what he was doing today was very special. Certainly it made this day a lot more stressful than I felt like it should have been after that start.”

Playing in the final group and the start delayed by looming thunderstorms, the two put on a show, bringing in the day’s best scores, a 63 by Hovland which was the lowest Sunday score for a Tour Championship winner and a 10-under 62 by Schauffele.

“I thought 62 would have let me get close to him,” Schauffele said. “He played unbelievably well. He made important putts and he’s just played like a champ. I’ll hold my head up high. It was the most fun I had losing in quite some time.

“It’s such a weird feeling. I shot 62. I lost by five. Just kudos to Hovi. He played unbelievably well the last few weeks to get himself into this position and to really just put a cherry on top for himself and his team.”

For the second time in four years, the 2020 Olympic champion brought in the best Sunday round at Atlanta and left empty-handed, other than a $6.5 million runners-up cheque. Wyndham Clark took a merited third place ahead of 2022 winner Rory McIlroy.

Asia’s challenge faded away over the final 36 holes, with Si Woo Kim the best finisher at 6 under par and shared 20th place alongside Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim, while Sungjae Im was shared 24th on 3 under.

Atlanta payouts

1. Viktor Hovland (-27) $18 million; 2. Xander Schauffele (-22) $6.5 million; 3. Wyndham Clark (-16) $5 million; 4. Rory McIlroy (-14) $4 million; 5. Patrick Cantlay (-13) $3 million; T6. Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa (-11) $2 million; T9. Sam Burns, Matt Fitzpatrick, Max Homa, Adam Schenk and Keegan Bradley (-10) $990,000; T14. Russel Henley and Sepp Straka (-9) $780,000; T16. Rickie Fowler and Tyrrel Hatton (-8) $710,000; T18. Lucas Glover and Jon Rahm (-7) $670,000; T20. Si Woo Kim, Tony Finau and Joohyung Kim (-6) $620,000; 23. Brian Harman (-4) $580,000; 24. Sungjae Im (-3) $565,000; 25. Nick Taylor (-2) $550,000; 26. Corey Connors (-1) $540,000; 27. Jordan Speith (+1) $530,000; 28. Jason Day (+3) $520,000; T29. Emiliano Grillo and Taylor Moore (+6) $505,000.