TGD Newswire – This Week In Golf – Scheffler’s 8-Shot Romp in Memphis Passes Rory on the Career Money List, Tiger in His Sights (Aug 16, 2026)
Scottie Scheffler opened the FedEx Cup Playoffs the same way he’s opened most of his 2026 season: by lapping the field. He won the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind by eight shots, closing at 17-under 263 for the largest margin of victory on Tour this season — and along the way passed a name that’s been synonymous with PGA Tour dominance for two decades.
The Round
Scheffler shot a final-round 66 that made an already-comfortable lead look like a rout, picking up his 21st career PGA Tour title. Si Woo Kim finished runner-up at 9-under, with Alex Norén and Scheffler’s own final-round playing partner Sam Burns sharing third. Kim, who’d told CBS Sports earlier in the week that he hadn’t beaten Scheffler even in casual rounds back home, came up short again — despite ranking first in the field in strokes gained tee-to-green, he couldn’t match Scheffler on the greens.
The Number That Matters More Than the Trophy
The win came with $3.6 million from the $20 million purse, and that payday pushed Scheffler past Rory McIlroy for second on the PGA Tour’s all-time career money list. He now sits roughly $1.04 million behind Tiger Woods for the No. 1 spot — a list Woods has topped since February 13, 2000. At his current pace, that record isn’t just falling, it’s falling soon.
The Bigger Pattern
This was Scheffler’s fifth straight season with multiple wins, in a year where he’d already finished runner-up five times — a level of week-to-week contention matched by only three other players since 2000. The St. Jude win was Scheffler reminding the field what happens when his complete game shows up: nobody else in the field was within a reasonable margin by Sunday afternoon.
What It Set Up
Just one player, Sungjae Im, jumped into the top 50 in FedEx Cup points from outside the cutoff to qualify for the following week’s BMW Championship — a quieter subplot in a week that Scheffler otherwise owned outright. The Tour now heads to the BMW Championship at Bellerive, the event that would go on to produce its own late-round fireworks.
Why It Matters
Individual tournament wins come and go, but passing McIlroy on the career money list — while Woods’s two-decade-long No. 1 spot sits within reach — is the kind of marker that reframes how Scheffler’s career gets talked about going forward. This wasn’t just another win. It was a signal that the record books are next.
Sources: CBS Sports, Golf Channel, Golf News Net
