Three-time FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy Photo: John Adams, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
ATLANTA, GEORGIA | Rory McIlroy has been the biggest champion of the PGA Tour all year long. It’s only fitting he should finish the season as the PGA Tour’s champion.
After three days of slipping and surging and chasing Scottie Scheffler around East Lake without gaining any ground, McIlroy needed just seven holes in Sunday’s final round of the Tour Championship to erase a six-shot deficit. At that point, did anyone really believe that either the world No. 1 or Sungjae Im were going to stop the tour’s brightest light from lifting the FedEx Cup trophy for an unprecedented third time?
McIlroy has done everything a player can do to try to safeguard the tour he loves from being cannibalized beyond recognition by LIV Golf. He’s turned his nose up at the guaranteed riches he could earn by cashing out, making the $18 million bonus as the season’s champ look like chump change.
Fittingly, in his crowning moment he lauded the peer he’d beaten…
