Rory McIlroy delivered a classy message as the golf world struggled to comprehend deserved winner Scottie Scheffler’s costly late choke at the season-ending TOUR Championship.
As the best player in golf all year, and for most of the week at the PGA Tour’s most lucrative event, nobody was going to begrudge the world No.1 capping a phenomenal season with another huge title.
Instead McIlroy rallied from six strokes down in the final round to overtake top-ranked Scheffler and win his record third FedEx Cup title.
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The 33-year-old from Northern Ireland fired a four-under-par 66 to win the $US18 million top prize while Scheffler carded a 73 – his worst round of the week by six shots – to fall into a share of second place with South Korean Im Sung-jae.
Scheffler still picks up a whopping $US5.75 million in prize money but producing one of his worst rounds of the season at the worst possible time ultimately cost him $A17.8 million.
The 26-year-old was one of only five players in the field to shoot an over-par round on Sunday and many were taken aback by how he seemed to crumble under the pressure having done the opposite so many times in a wonder season that also yielded a maiden major win at the Masters.
McIlroy showed his class by acknowledging Scheffler’s incredible campaign at the start of his victory speech.
“There’s one thing I want to say. I feel like Scottie deserves at least half of this today. He has had an unbelievable season,” McIlroy said.
“I feel sort of bad that I pipped him to the post but he’s a hell of a competitor, he’s an even better guy and it wasn an honour and a privilege to battle with him today and I’m sure we’ll have many more.
“I told him we’re 1-all now. He got the Masters, I got this.”
