But when Scheffler's putting got shakier it allowed Hovland, who had started the day tied in 5th and three shots back, to rise through the field and at one stage it became a three-way tie for the lead. But then Hovland powered on through to the summit alone.
The joint overnight leaders, Scheffler and Matt Fitzpatrick, finished in a tie for second after rounds of 66.
Scheffler goes in the Tour Championship top of the FedExCup standings and so will start at -10. Hovland is second in the FedEx Cup standings, so will start at -8.
BMW CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL LEADERBOARD
- -17 Hovland
- -15 Scheffler, Fitzpatrick
- -12 McIlroy
- -11 Homa, Harman
- -10 Im
- -9 Henley, Schauffele
Roderick Easdale will be taking you through the final round of the 2023 BMW Championship.
The story of this year’s BMW Championship so far
Day three: A 64 from Scottie Scheffler took him to joint top of the leaderboard with Matt Fitzpatrick (66). Sam Burns equalled Max Homa’s course record 62 of the day before, but this only raised him to T7.
Rory McIlroy in first round action
When the leaders are due out
It is currently about 11.30am CDT if you need to translate it to your time zone. Or to put it another way, the last pairing will be teeing off in about an hour and 20 minutes.
Hard Ryder decisions
A few weeks ago, well prior to the Wyndham Championship to be exact, Lucas Glover was on no-one’s radar for Ryder Cup selection. He was a 43-year-old who had never played in the Ryder Cup and who was 112th in FedEx Cup points table and 118th in the world rankings. Even to get into the FedEx Playoffs he needed to finish in the top two at the Wyndhams. He won. This moved him to 49th in the FedEx. The first of the playoffs, the St Jude Championship, he also won. This moved to 4th in the FedEx standings and 30th in the world rankings.
Do you pick on recent form, in which case Lucas Glover is an obvious pick. Or do you take a longer-term view, the old “form is temporary, class is permanent” argument and leave out Glover for someone who is performing worse than him at present?
In a weird way, Ryder Cup selection would complete a sort of circle for Glover, well maybe a lopsided oval. He won the US Open in 2009, but did not get selected for the next Ryder Cup, in 2010. He did play the 2009 Presidents Cup. Ten of the 12-man team qualified he and Hunter Mahan were Fred Couples’ two captain’s picks. Now could Glover play in a Ryder Cup in a season in which he did not even play in any of the Majors?
Lucas Glover reads a birdie putt with the help of his partner Stewart Cink during the Day Two Fourballs in The Presidents Cup of 2009
They should ban cameras from the range
Last few minutes of the television coverage has been mainly of McIlroy hitting balls on the range. What is the desire from producers to show players warming up when the tournament is going on? We see little enough of the actual action as it is.
Rose didn't get up and down from the bunker so he drops a shot on what has been the easiest hole so far this week.. He is now 31st on the projected FedEx points table. Just a reminder: top 30 proceed to East Lake next week.
There is a lady whose job is...
...to stand at the front of the grandstand behind the 1st tee facing the spectators holding up her hands as a sign to people in grandstand to be quiet. I hope she does not like golf as she will have had her back to the play all day. Or maybe in about 20 minutes' time when everyone has teed off, she can wander off and watch some of the action? Or perhaps she hates golf and so that is why she was picked her for this particular bit of stewarding?
Straka has finished his round... and perhaps the playoffs
He went round today in 66. This leaves him currently 33rd in the FedEx points table. He went out in a sprightly 30, but could only come back in 36, with eight pars and then a bogey on 18.
Brooks to qualify for Ryder Cup?
Max Homa will overtake Koepka if he wins at least £572,390. To get this amount of prize money he will need to come at least solo 9th.
Talking of the clubhouse
It was certainly built on an Olympian scale.
Olympia Fields Country Club was founded in 1915, and ten years later, when all the parts of the plan had come to fruition, it had four 18-hole golf courses, making it the first 72-hole private golf course in the country. It also had world’s largest private clubhouse (it covered 2.5 acres) with a dining room that seated 800 and a cafe that seated 600. The locker room, whch is bigger than many club’s actual clubhosues at 10,00sq ft, was designed to provide facilities for 1,200 golfers. When the club opened it had 500 members. By 1940 it had 1,400 members.
Luck of the Irish?
"You're kidding me," said Rory McIlroy as he watched his drive off the 4th head towards out of bounds on the left. But his ball hits a tree and bounces back into the rough.
Grillo in the clubhouse
He is round in 67 and lies T32. But more importantly he is now 28th in the FedEx rankings. He had been 33rd after his 11th hole today, but a birdie on 14 took him to 30th; par on 15 to 29th and par on the last to 28th.
That approach by Scheffler
Can’t get much closer than this 😳Scottie Scheffler stays dialed @BMWChamps. pic.twitter.com/Z13Jra6hsuAugust 20, 2023
Spieth finishes his round
He now lies 30th in the FedEx table. He bogeyed the last, as had Straka earlier. Straka lies 31st but is in the clubhouse. However McCarthy, Rose and Theegala are 32-34 and they are out on the course.
The course
This tournament is being played over the Olympia Fields’ North Course. There used to be four courses at Olympia Fields, called 1, 2, 3, and 4. (The 80ft clock tower above the clubhouse was designed so that one of its four faces could be read from the 1st tee of each of the courses.) Willie Park Jr was brought in to make some tweaks to the three existing courses that the club had, and they liked his work so much he was asked to design the club’s fourth course.
However he had many business interests. He took over his father’s clubmaking business and expanded it so much that he had a factory employing 40, with 20 more employees working in retail outlets in Edinburgh, Manchester and London. He designed new clubs, such as the lofter and bulger, and golf balls. He also wrote two bestselling books on golf.
He also became known for his work in designing inland golf courses. He designed what is now known as the Old Course at Sunningdale and the highest ranked course in Golf Monthly’s Top 100 Courses that is not a links.
Keith Cutten, in The Evolution of Golf Course Design, writes: “In 1901, when both Sunningdale (Old) and Huntercombe opened to rave reviews, Willie Park Jr significantly elevated the standard of inland golf course architecture in Britain... These two projects secured Park’s success, enabling him to become one of the first full-time golf course architects.”
After the First World War, Park moved to North America. He is credited with designing at least 60 courses in the US and Canada. His course for Olympia Fields, which opened in 1923, was one of his last designs, and he reckoned quite possibly his best, writing to the club that: “I have examined thousands of places adaptable for the ideal golf course, both in Europe and America, but I have never seen a more natural setting for a championship course. I am satisfied now that your number IV course is the equal of any golf course I have ever seen and I know of none that is superior, either in beauty or natural terrain."
There was an intention to have a fifth course at Olympia Fields. This never happened, and financial pressures reduced the courses to two when land was sold off in the 1940s to clear the club’s debts. A new course was constructed from courses 1, 2 and 3, but the Course 4 was left intact, as the best on the property. It was renamed the North course and the new course was named the South Course.
The club says that “The North Course remains steadfastly faithful to Park's original design, with precious few changes over the decades other than deepened bunkers and additional length.” Features of the layout include narrow fairways and small greens protected by greenside bunkers. Butterfield Creek winds its way through the course, and is part of the design of seven of the holes. There is little by way of elevation change across the course with it highest and lowest points having only a 42ft difference in height.
12th hole at Olympia Fields
Transporting to the past
“The train was critical to the club in the early years, as that was the only way for members to get to the club from the city,” Olympia Fields former Director of Golf Brian Morrison has explained. “Without the train, there would be no club.”
Taking of railways, Joohyung Kim is known as Tom because of Thomas The Tank Engine, an anthropomorphised tank engine in the children's books by Revd W. Awdry. Kim was given the nickname Thomas because of his love for Thomas The Tank Engine, “As I grew older, some people started calling me Tom and I thought it was just shorter and more simple. I think by the time I was 11 I just went by Tom.”
On subject of names, Rev W, Awdry’s Christian name was Willbert, which he was given as it combined the names of his father’s two favourite brothers, William and Herbert.
BMW signage on the 18th hole
Another bubble boy has played all 72
It's Sahith Theegala. He finished birdie-birdie-birdie-bogey. After those four holes he was 33-29-29-29 in the FedEx rankings.
Cantlay can’t
Cantlay has gone 68-68-71-67 and lies T15, three shots behind clubhouse leader Russell Henley (T8). So Patrick Cantlay’s effort to win the BMW Championship for a third year in a row has ended unsuccessfully.
Caddies
Caddies are are essential part of Olympia Fields experience as “guests are not allowed to walk and carry their own bag at any time.” You even have to have a caddie here if you are not walking but going round in a buggy. But in these circs they take on the roles of forecaddies instead. When the club had four courses it also had 1,000 caddies.
Olympia Fields’ caddie dress code requires that they “wear a caddie bib with the OFCC logo, a name tag, a white shirt and a caddie hat. Khaki pants or shorts are to worn when providing services on club property. They are also to have a ball mark repair tool each round. Caddies planning to provide caddie services at OFCC can purchase these items as a package each season for $100.’
Augusta National has a dress code for its own caddies – those white jumpsuits – which it also imposes on outside caddies during The Masters. But OFCC has not imposed their code of the caddies in the BMW Championship –which has saved the caddies $100 each by the sounds of it.
Viktor Hovland and his caddie Shay Knight
Hovland with another birdie
That is five in the six holes on the back nine. He looks to be Scheffler's main challenger, especially as Fitz has just played an approach which got the spectators up off their seats in the wrong way - to avoid his ball.
Hovland is -7 for his round
He has two holes to play. They are tough holes - the 17th has played the 7th hardest this week, and 18 has been the hardest hole. But a par and a birdie and he ties the course record. He is a stroke behind Scheffler. Fitzpatrick made bogey on 14 after his ball ended up under a spectator's chair and is now two shots back from Hovland and three off the lead.
Scheffler misses his putt; Fitzpatrick does not
Scheffler's was measured at 7ft 3in. Fitzpatrick's at 5ft 5in.
Hovland's birdie putt drops
It is only the 7th birdie on that hole today and with it he has set a new course record of 61. He has come back in 28.
Hovland leads on -17, a shot ahead of Scheffler. Hovland the favourite now.
Scheffler needs eagle on the last to force a playoff
Scheffler's birdie putt on 17 does not show much interest in going near the hole, and he has a four-footer coming back for par which he sends past on the right. Fitz had already made his par. (So Fitz needs an eagle, too!)
And our runner up is...
Jointly Scheffler and Fitzpatrick. Fitz's birdie putt hit the rim. Had it gone in he would have sent Hovland into first place on the FedEx standings and Scheffler down to second.
So Scheffler will start the Tour Championship with a two-shot start
The Tour Championship or TOUR Championship as the PGA Tour like to style it (no I don’t know why, perhaps they just like being different - or annoying) is essentially a handicap competition. But it is one with a difference as the best players are further advantaged, so its not like the monthly medal at you club. (Told you - the PGA Tour like to be different.)
That back nine by Hovland
Viktor Hovland has become the first golfer since Kevin Streelman at the Travelers Championship of 2014 to shoot a back nine 28 in the final round to win on the PGA Tour. Hovland's back nine was seven birdies and two pars.
That Scheffler missed putt on 17
A bogey on No. 17 for Scottie Scheffler puts him two back heading to the last. pic.twitter.com/ERUl9fw6qKAugust 20, 2023
Who Is In The Tour Championship and with what shot advantage?
Scheffler: -10
Hovland: -8
McIlroy: -7
Rahm: -6
Glover: -5
Homa, Cantlay, Harman, Clark, Fitzpatrick: -4
Fleetwood, Henley, Bradley, Fowler, Schauffele: -3
Kim, Im, Finau, Conners, SW Kim: -2
Moore, Taylor, Schenk, Morikawa, Day: -1
Burns, Grillo, Hatton, Spieth, Straka: level par
Victor Viktor
Viktor Hovland poses with The Western Golf Association Trophy and BMW Trophy