Signature Scroll: Big names battling bubble at Bellerive

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The bubble is bubbling. Let’s get into it …

A walk on the bubble

ST. LOUIS – A PGA TOUR season is made up of thousands of swings across hundreds of rounds and dozens of tournaments, designed to methodically separate the best from the rest.

It’s the culmination of innumerable small outcomes that add up to paint a full picture of who you were. By season’s end, your spot on the FedExCup standings is no fluke. It’s earned.

At the BMW Championship, roughly half of the 50-man field has earned the right to be nervous.

Only the top 30 advance to the TOUR Championship, which comes with a litany of benefits. If you’re one who likes statistics, they’ll tell you that about 26 golfers have already secured their place in next week’s season finale. The rest of the field is relegated to fighting it out for the final four spots.

With that in mind, I set out for two men who know this struggle well – Gary Woodland and Adam Scott – and who found themselves amid the large contingent with elevated heart rates this week.

Woodland hasn’t made it to East Lake since 2019, the year he won the U.S. Open. At No. 31 in the standings, he’s tantalizingly close to keeping his season alive. Scott is in a better spot, 27th on the points list, but he can’t rest on his laurels either. At ages 42 and 47, respectively, Woodland and Scott can’t count on continued success for years to come. Each season they are playing well, they need to capitalize. Scott is trying to maintain an incredible streak of 101 straight majors, and a full year of exemptions comes with making the top 30, valuable security at this stage of his career. Woodland’s incentives are similar, though it comes with the added pride of accomplishing it while continuing to battle the effects of the brain tumor he had removed nearly two years ago.

It’s with those stakes that I followed their back nine at Bellerive Country Club, wondering what it was like to play with the bubble hanging over you.

Very quickly, the dichotomy of this week was laid bare. The randomness that the TOUR’s lengthy season is designed to stamp out is suddenly what will decide this week and alter career trajectories.

As I reached the twosome, Scott’s ball-striking, which has carried him all season, let him down. He pulled a long-iron approach on the 10th and did the same with wedge in hand on 11 and 12.

“So bad, Adam,” Scott said as his flip-wedge on the 11th drifted left.

Seconds later, Woodland, who ranks 115th on TOUR in approach shots under 100 yards, holed out from 99 yards for eagle at the 11th to race out to 6-under, four clear in the early stages.

That’s how this week will go. There are only around 200 swings and 54 holes left. The season is long, until it’s not. And we’ve reached the stage of the season where it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, only what you can conjure up for the next few days.

“I can promise you East Lake wasn't on my mind to start the year,” Woodland said.

It is now. Woodland shot 6 under and – with a win – is projected to move to 14th. Scott, who found a few late birdies to shoot 2 under, is projected inside the top 30 as well. It would do wonders for both. Can they hang on?

After every round, we will take a look at who is projected to move in and out of the top-30 bubble. After 18 holes, here’s where things stand.

IN

• T1. Woodland (31st ➡️ 14th)
• T12. Jake Knapp (35th ➡️ 29th)

OUT

• T44. Kurt Kitayama (28th ➡️ 31st)
• T48. Bud Cauley (29th ➡️ 32nd)

Playing through

• ⛳ Catch up on Round 1 highlights ...
• 🔃 Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler reversed roles on Thursday …
• 📺 Catch Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele during ESPN’s linear coverage window on Friday morning …

‘It feels like the last tournament of my life’

Monday was a terrible day. At least for Justin Thomas.

Fresh off a gruelingly hot week in Memphis that didn’t go as planned, Thomas wanted nothing more than to take the day off.

He couldn’t let himself. His game wasn’t in a good enough place. So he trekked out to Bellerive and planted himself at the range. What he expected to be a short range session turned into a lengthy one. He couldn’t leave without finding some positive momentum. He hit 126 golf balls, nearly the most on property.

“It took a lot longer than I planned or wanted it to,” Thomas said. “Really it was, honestly, a pretty terrible day, to be perfectly honest.”

Thomas desperately wants his season to continue, and it’s not necessarily for any reason the outside world would prescribe. It’s not to try and play his way onto the Presidents Cup team. He learned that the hard way in 2023, trying to make the Ryder Cup team. It’s best for him not to think about it. It’s not to get to East Lake and lock in major starts. He’s confident he will qualify in some way. It’s only partly because he wants to win the FedExCup.

Mostly, it’s just pride.

“I think it would be a pretty awesome accomplishment, in my opinion, starting in, you know, in March and being able to do that with I feel like a pretty average season,” Thomas said. “... I just really, really want it for me more than anything, because I'm just not really ready to be done playing golf yet this season.”

Thomas is feeling that pressure, which he called “really, really weird.” In a conversation with his wife Jill earlier this week, Thomas said it feels like “the last tournament of my life.”

“It sucks, to be honest,” he told the media.

Thomas is doing his best to change that. He shot 3 under on Thursday, tied for T12 after the first round. That won’t be good enough, though. He needs at least a solo seventh finish, and as it stands after 18 holes, he’s projected to finish 43rd in the FedExCup. He has only two top-10 finishes all season, on pace for the fewest in his career.

“I either play well or my season’s over,” Thomas said.

The thing Thomas may have to grapple with: He might play well and his season still might end.

Parting shots

• 🆕 Woodland switched golf balls last week to the ProV1x Double Dot. That’s the same ball Cameron Young put in play last year and credits a lot of his success. It’s also the ball that passed the USGA’s proposed rollback regulations. “My misses have been so much better, it’s been awesome,” he told me.
• 🏌️ Watch Rory McIlroy’s pre-shot routine the rest of the week. That’s what he said led to his quick turnaround. He found it during a quick pit stop in Florida on Monday, working with his coach Michael Bannon.
• 🟩 Scheffler’s 2-over round snapped a run of 12 straight rounds under par. Just as we were getting ready to crown him as Player of the Year. At one point, Scheffler was dead last on the leaderboard and last in Strokes Gained: Approach and SG: Putting. Woof. He salvaged a few birdies to shoot 72.
• 🫢 A stat that shocked me ... Scott hasn't made it to East Lake in consecutive seasons since 2013-14. He missed the Playoffs entirely last year. Enters the BMW at No. 27 in the FedExCup with a good chance to get back to the TOUR Championship.
• 🇺🇲 Collin Morikawa and Ben Griffin are off to solid starts, both 2 under. That’s notable as they are Nos. 5 and 6 in the Presidents Cup U.S. Team standings. There’s a path for several players to overtake them this week, but that’s reliant on Morikawa and Griffin having poor weeks.
• 🔄 After trialing two different putters, J.J. Spaun returned to the same putter he won the U.S. Open with for this week. He shot 64 and ranked third in putting, gaining over three strokes on the greens. “I think it learned its lesson being in timeout,” he said.
• 🇯🇵 This could be a pivotal week for Ryo Hisatsune, one of the many Internationals on the bubble for the Presidents Cup International Team. He’s 12th in the standings, and a solid result would do wonders for his chances. He shot 5 under on Thursday.