The Loop
Video: McIlroy tops a star-studded leader board at the BMW
By Alex Myers
The weekend leader board at the BMW Championship was a who's who of golf. Unfortunately for the game's other big stars, though, right now, golf belongs to one name.
Rory McIlroy won for a second-straight week and for the third time in his past four tournaments. The 23-year-old solidified his lead in both the Official World Golf Ranking and FedEx Cup standings with a final-round 67 at Crooked Stick to best a loaded leader board. Here are the highlights from Sunday, which included charges by Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson:
McIlroy will enter the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup finale, in first place, but with a points reset, he is just 250 points ahead of Tiger Woods, despite having beaten the 14-time major champion in all three playoff events thus far. The reasoning for the reset is to increase the drama at East Lake next week. Anyone in the top 5 (McIlroy, Woods, Nick Watney, Phil Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker) wins the FedEx Cup trophy and the $10-million bonus with a victory at East Lake.
Of course, we've seen that the winner of sports' biggest payday doesn't have to come from one of the top challengers. Last year, Bill Haas entered the final event ranked No. 25, but his dramatic playoff win (Think: Up-and-down from a water hazard), coupled with a perfect storm of contenders faltering made him the most likely winner of the FedEx Cup in the competition's five-year history. In its sixth year, however, Haas showed just how volatile the PGA Tour's playoffs can be once again. This time, he crumbled down the stretch at Crooked Stick to narrowly miss out on qualifying for the Tour Championship's 30-man field and continue an odd streak in which the defending FedEx Cup champion has never even made it back to East Lake.