A bizarre bounce on 18 set up an unlikely finish as the Tour Championship kicked off under the new no-strokes format.
PublishedAugust 21, 2025 7:40 PM EDT•UpdatedAugust 21, 2025 6:54 PM EDT
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The final hole at East Lake Golf Club, the site of this week’s PGA Tour Championship, isn’t a tough hole to birdie for a professional golfer. It’s a par-5, on which the best in the world generally feast. Playing alongside Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy managed to make a birdie on his final hole in the first round.
But it was anything but conventional.
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This year, the PGA Tour decided to do away with starting strokes, so every player started the Tour Championship on Thursday at even par. In previous years, players would start a certain number of strokes under par based on their FedEx Cup Playoff standing entering the season’s final tournament. Last year, Scheffler started at 10-under and went on to win the event.
This year, though, Scheffler – despite finishing first in the FedEx Cup standings – started even with everyone else. That included Rory McIlroy, who finished second in the standings even though he didn’t play in the first event of the playoffs. The two were paired together thanks to their 1-2 finish in the standings.
PGA Tour superstars Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy look on from the ninth tee during the first round of the TOUR Championship 2025.
(Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
The starting strokes don’t matter to Scheffler – in fact, he advocated doing away with them even though it definitely affected him negatively more than anyone else. Once again, Scheffler posted a great round and finds himself second on the leaderboard, two shots behind Russell Henley, who made over 200 feet of putts to shoot a sparkling nine-under 61.
While McIlroy didn’t quite post as good a round as Scheffler and Henley, it could have been worse. After sending his tee shot into the left rough on the final hole, McIlroy hit his second into a greenside bunker.
There’s arguably no shot in golf tougher than the long bunker shot and that’s what the second-best golfer on the planet faced. He tried to hit sand first, as is the strategy for those shots, but instead hit nothing but his golf ball and sailed his shot over the green.
But that’s when things got weird.
McIlroy’s shot ricocheted off the bleachers and bounded onto the green. It settled just 17 feet from the cup and, of course, McIlroy converted the putt to cap off the unconventional birdie. Both McIlroy and his playing partner, Scheffler, couldn’t help but laugh.
Rory McIlroy ultimately shot a four-under 66 to sit five shots behind Henley and three shots behind Scheffler.
Every golfer knows it’s better to be lucky than good. However, Rory McIlroy happened to be both on Thursday afternoon.
