Five players with most at stake Sunday at BMW Championship

CASTLE PINES VILLAGE, Colo. – The final round of the BMW Championship at Castle Pines on Sunday will be chock full of meaning.

For players who came into this week outside the FedExCup top 30 the goal will be to survive and advance to the TOUR Championship at East Lake – and still with a chance to win the FedExCup.

Some are also trying to play their way onto the U.S. and International Presidents Cup teams that will clash at Royal Montreal, Sept. 26-29.

And then there’s the Colorado kid, Wyndham Clark, for whom a win in front of the hometown faithful would be especially meaningful.

Here are the five players with the most at stake going into Sunday at the BMW.

Keegan Bradley

Bradley (70, 12-under, solo lead) has been playing with freedom after barely making the top-50 BMW Championship by 17 points over No. 51 Tom Kim.

He had a topsy-turvy third round – four pars, eight birdies, six bogeys – but can’t argue with the 2-under 70 that left him in first alone, one ahead of Adam Scott.

“It was tough out there today,” Bradley said. “It was really windy, a lot of elevated tees that were into the wind, which makes it really tough. Proud of the way I fought today. I played some brilliant golf, but I hit also some terrible shots, too. I guess that's the way of the world.”

Bradley could not only play his way to the top-30 TOUR Championship at East Lake but also make a strong case to be picked for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, with automatic spots finalized after the BMW Championship. He already has been named as an assistant captain to Jim Furyk for that team, which will take on the International Team at Royal Montreal, Sept. 26-29.

Bradley also will captain the U.S. Ryder Cup team at New York’s Bethpage Black next year.

He’s only 38; does he feel forgotten about as a player?

“A little bit,” he said. “But that's sort of been how I've gone my whole career.”

Xander Schauffele

When he began the day, Schauffele wasn’t even within 10 strokes of the lead.

After shooting 5-under 67 in the third round, he’d climbed up the leaderboard to give himself an outside shot at not only capturing his third win this year – PGA Championship, The Open Championship – but also potentially vaulting into first in the FedExCup standings.

At 7 under for the tournament, Schauffele will go into Sunday just five back. He would have to win Sunday while No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (74, 1 over, T35) finishes out of the top four. Scheffler has finished out of the top 10 just once since January (T41, U.S. Open).

“I mean, it would be hard to,” Schauffele said of the prospect of heading to East Lake at No. 1. “I'd have to win and Scottie would have to do something he's never really done.”

As for the BMW trophy itself, Schauffele is no stranger to Sunday fireworks. He has twice shot 65 to win majors this season and is coming off a final-round 63 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship (T2) that left him just two shy of winner Hideki Matsuyama.

A nine-time PGA TOUR winner, Schauffele came into this week after three straight top-10s and he hasn’t finished outside the top 15 since April.

Adam Scott

It’s been a while since Scott, 44, won on the PGA TOUR – over four and a half years since the 2020 Genesis Invitational – and that may have informed Scott’s rocky start to Round 3.

Although he began Saturday with a three-shot lead over Keegan Bradley, Scott hit his opening tee shot way right and out of bounds at the par-5 first hole. He salvaged bogey but soon pumped his drive into the pond left of the third fairway and made double.

Scott was 4 over for his first four holes but went 2 under from there to shoot a 2-over 74.

At 11 under, he’s just one back.

“I really struggled mostly on the greens today,” he said. “They were just so different from yesterday's round speed-wise and firmness and look and everything,” he continued. “Felt like I was on a different course almost, and I just battled that most of the round.

“… I'm in a good spot in the end of it to be one back,” he added.

Scott is fifth in the International Presidents Cup team standings; the top six at the conclusion of the BMW Championship will automatically make the team.

Ludvig Åberg

Altitude, thin air, and/or the dry conditions caught Åberg by surprise Saturday.

“First hole I was kind of handling a little nosebleed incident on the fairway,” he said.

He nevertheless birdied the hole, led for much of the day, and signed for a 1-under 71. He is tied with fellow Swede and playing partner Alex Noren (70) at 10 under, two back.

“Felt like I was being aggressive all day,” said FedExCup No. 7 Åberg. “I was making aggressive swings, aggressive putts, which I like. … It was sneaky hard. The wind was tricky.”

No one wants to rack up a bunch of close calls without a single trophy on the season. Åberg, fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking, finished second at the rain-shortened AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Masters Tournament but seemed headed toward his second PGA TOUR victory at the Genesis Scottish Open in July. Then he shot a final-round 73 to finish T4.

A solid Sunday at the BMW could give him a long-awaited mark in the win column in ’24.

Wyndham Clark

Although Keegan Bradley gets a lot of cheers as the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, the identity of the people’s choice at Castle Pines is not in doubt: Denver’s own Wyndham Clark.

Clark, a standout at Valor Christian High who attended Oklahoma State and Oregon, eagled the par-5 17th hole and shot a third-round 69 to get to 7 under. He is tied with Schauffele, five back.

“It's been amazing every day, honestly,” Clark, who will be seeking his fourth PGA TOUR win, said of the hometown support. “Even in the practice rounds, it's been so awesome.”

Clark admits he got out of his process after shooting a course-record 60 to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February. He started to focus on results and forgot what made him great in the first place, but he’s arrested the slide and has been trending in the right direction.

After stumbling with a first-round 77 at the Olympics, he finished 68-65-65 (T14). And he is coming off a final-round 64 and T7 finish at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.

Denver is where his heart is, and a victory here would be a storybook ending for the BMW.

“My goal, my caddie and I, we just wanted to be in contention,” said Clark, who is sixth in the FedExCup. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow, at least I had the juices flowing this week and battled a lot of the adversity of handling hometown kid, the pressure.”

A victory for the Colorado kid would recall Robert MacIntyre capturing the Genesis Scottish Open earlier this season and Nick Taylor winning the 2023 RBC Canadian Open.