Ask any PGA TOUR golfer what their goals are at the beginning of the year, and you’ll often find one commonality: Making it to the TOUR Championship is at the top of the list.

The goal is multifaceted. Yes, players want to win the FedExCup, but reaching the TOUR Championship in Atlanta is as much about what you play for at East Lake Golf Club as it is about what making it to the tournament means. It’s evidence that your season was a success, that you were consistently among the TOUR’s best. Brian Campbell and Ryan Fox each won twice, yet neither is at East Lake. That’s telling of how difficult it is to reach the season-ending TOUR Championship.

So, ahead of the season finale, let’s level-set around who is peaking among the best of the best. Here are five players peaking for the TOUR Championship.

1. Scottie Scheffler

There's no telling how high Scheffler will push his peak, but the version of the world No. 1 that won last week’s BMW Championship and has run through competitors over the last several months is the most complete we’ve seen.

Statistically, Scheffler is as good as he’s ever been with off the tee and on approach, which have long been the calling cards of his game. The truly transformative shift has occurred in his putting, which has progressed from putrid to average to elite over the last three seasons. Scheffler ranks 16th on TOUR in putting entering the TOUR Championship and will set a career-best mark regardless of how he finishes the season. Scheffler’s lead over Rory McIlroy in the Official World Golf Ranking is as large as the gap between McIlroy and No. 115 Taylor Moore.

Anecdotally, the difference between Scheffler and the best of the rest has never been starker. No matter the tournament, the course or past history, Scheffler appears destined to win. And if he doesn’t win, he’s almost guaranteed a top-10. Scheffler hasn’t finished worse than eighth since THE PLAYERS Championship in March. He hasn’t finished outside the top 25 this season.

All of that has Scheffler deservedly positioned as the runaway favorite at East Lake. No player has ever won the FedExCup in back-to-back years. Can Scheffler become the first?

2. Ludvig Åberg

The Swede managed a spring slump and has reemerged with the form that helped him win The Genesis Invitational earlier this year. Åberg has gained strokes on approach and off the tee in every start since the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday and that good golf is finally translating into top results.

Åberg was in the second-to-last group in the final two rounds of the BMW Championship, ultimately finishing seventh. It was his third top-10 in his last four starts. Over those four starts, Åberg has actually been above-average in every Strokes Gained category.

“I’m really pleased by the swing and the way I’m trending,” Åberg told PGATOUR.COM last Sunday at Caves Valley.

The swing was what held Åberg back earlier this season. He said he fell into some bad habits that took a few months to correct. They seem fixed, and it’s come at a great time. Åberg will be one of the favorites at the TOUR Championship and will be a key fixture for the European Team at the Ryder Cup in September.

3. Tommy Fleetwood

Fleetwood’s search for his first PGA TOUR win has become one of the most compelling stories going in golf. He nearly did it at the Travelers Championship, undone by a three-putt at the final hole and a Keegan Bradley birdie barrage. Fleetwood led by two shots with three to play last week in Memphis, but withered with a par on the easy par-5 16th and a bogey on the 17th, while his playing partner Justin Rose soared into the picture and eventually toppled J.J. Spaun in a playoff.

Lost in the deafening, surface-level discourse of whether Fleetwood will ever win is the underlying context that the Englishman is playing more consistently than at any point in his career. Fleetwood is third in Scoring Average on TOUR, behind only Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. He ranks third in Strokes Gained: Total and seventh in SG: Approach, both career bests. He’s finished in the top-25 in over 75 percent of his starts.

“I would rather you be questioning me about not finishing tournaments off than not questioning me at all about anything,” Fleetwood said Tuesday from East Lake. “So I've obviously shown a lot of really good stuff and put myself in great positions. I've said every single time that I just want to put myself there again. I want to give myself another chance. I'll finish it off at some point. I'll get it right and I'll get it right more than once. But being there is actually the hard part in a way.”

Fleetwood has been there plenty this season and has continued to mount strong weeks despite the disappointments. Make no mistake, he’s peaking. If he continues playing at this level, that win will come sooner or later.

4. Cameron Young

Young’s breakthrough moment came at the Wyndham Championship, a runaway six-shot victory that was never in doubt Sunday – but the American’s run of great play started well before that.

Young finished T7 at the Truist Championship, then bagged back-to-back T4s at the RBC Canadian Open and the U.S. Open, part of a streak of five events in which he gained more than a stroke on the field each week.

That’s a consistent level of elite golf, which was spotlighted further with his definitive win at the Wyndham and then backed up over the last month. In his two starts since his victory, Young has finished fifth and 11th. He ranks as the third-best player in the world over the last 30 days per Data Golf, trailing only Scheffler and Fleetwood.

That rivals any run of play that Young has put together in his career, a welcome sign for the 28-year-old and for the U.S. Ryder Cup Team.

Young has a strong case that he belongs at Bethpage, not far from where he grew up in New York. Getting win No. 2 at the TOUR Championship would solidify that pursuit.

5. Harry Hall

Perhaps the most unexpected face at the TOUR Championship is Hall, who was the only golfer to play their way into East Lake from outside the top-30 bubble last week.

Hall has quietly strung together an incredibly impressive summer. Nine of his last 11 starts have been top 25s as he jumped up the FedExCup standings and secured his first TOUR Championship appearance. Hall ranks first on TOUR in putting and has amassed a similarly excellent season from around the green.

Hall’s rise has him in the mix for the 12th spot on the European Ryder Cup team, which already seems to have 11 golfers comfortably confirmed for the event next month. Hall’s case is strengthening by the week. He’s been the fourth-best European golfer over the last three months per Data Golf and is unquestionably peaking in his career. Another top result at the TOUR Championship would only embolden Hall’s case.