The final event of the 2026 PGA Tour postseason kicked off Thursday with Min Woo Lee setting the pace at East Lake Golf Club. In his first Tour Championship appearance, the Australian looked right at home as he tied his personal best on the PGA Tour with a sizzling 8-under 62.
Lee leads Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Chris Gotterup by two strokes as he attempts to become the second straight FedEx Cup winner to claim the season-long race without a win that year prior to the Tour Championship. Since a runner-up finish at the Scottish Open, Lee arrived in Atlanta with finishes of T59, T55 and T47 in last week’s 50-man field at the BMW Championship.
Admitting to being a bit down on his game, Lee flipped his attitude, and his game followed.
“I probably should have done a better job out there when I was playing,” he said. “The results were not good, and that’s kind of how I felt. This week was a brand-new week, and we obviously play from scratch, and everyone plays from the same score. Being out there, I thought, why not give it a good crack and have a good attitude? That was probably a thing that I had to work on over the last two weeks.”
Lee hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation to lead the field in Round 1 while gaining nearly three strokes on the greens. In his first official stroll around East Lake, he did not drop a single shot as he put eight birdies on the scorecard — four on each nine. Lee can thank a small tweak in the bag, while Hovland can credit a renewed commitment, knowing it is the final event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
“I think it’s just the fact that it’s the season-ending event,” Hovland said. “I’m always a guy that likes to think long term and processes and all that stuff. That’s how I find motivation to keep working and see trends over time to see that I’m improving. But this week, you just have to perform and get the best out of yourself for one week, and I feel like when I can put myself in that mindset, I tend to get a lot out of my game.”
Other first-timers Ryan Gerard and Ryan Fox didn’t miss a beat as they find themselves inside the top 10 at 5 under and 4 under, respectively. Those are the same tallies as two of the most beautiful swings in the game as Ludvig Åberg opened the affair with a 65, one better than Adam Scott’s 66.
Meanwhile, the best player in the game and No. 1 player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, got hot late with a birdie-birdie finish to post a round of 5 under. Three-time FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy had a rollercoaster of a first round and stands in a tie for 20th at 2 under after being 2 over early in the proceedings.
Leader
1. Min Woo Lee (-8): Even this deep into the season, players are still making changes, and it was a modification by Lee that provided the spark he needed to open the Tour Championship. Switching to heavier shafts in his irons, Lee was able to control his scoring clubs much more effectively, allowing the rest of his game to complement his approach play in Round 1.
“It just got to a point where I was looking at what’s in the bags of everyone else and trying to find out what to do and ended up changing shafts before the week, on the Tuesday,” Lee said. “Even my team was very hesitant about it, but the results were really good when I did practice with it, and it was nice to hit shots that I saw out there, and it was really good.”
Lee’s approach play has been a bright spot this year, as he is gaining strokes in that category for the first time in his PGA Tour career. It has dropped off substantially over the last month, however, with the BMW Championship being the breaking point for him.
“It’s a heavier shaft, and coach back home said, ‘Why are you swinging it so fast?’ It didn’t look like that, but yeah, sure enough, I was swinging it pretty fast,” Lee continued. “Slowed it down a little bit, and the ball actually came out nice. Just trust my rep, and it was actually just a blind test. There was three shafts that he took off the stickers on, and I just hit some shots. One was really nice, and it was that one. Again, it was very hesitant and very reactive on the last two weeks on why I wanted to change it, but it was a good gamble.”
Contenders
T2. Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Chris Gotterup (-6)
T5. Ryan Gerard, Akshay Bhatia, Ludvig Åberg, Scottie Scheffler (-5)
T9. Ryan Fox, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland, Tommy Fleetwood, Sam Burns, Matt Fitzpatrick (-4)
Everyone inside the top five is 30 years old or younger, but fear not, Scott is here to break up the party. Making his return to East Lake after missing the postseason in its entirety in 2025, Scott was steady throughout the bag in the first round amid a consistent year that could be capped off with an exclamation point. A win would be his first since the 2020 Genesis Invitational.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t think it was harder. I watch so many of the players on Tour, and the standard is so deep,” Scott said. “There are so many players with the potential to win any week. The learning curve is a lot quicker. I think they learn in college now. I came out, I didn’t know a lot. I didn’t learn a lot in college, in the classroom or on the golf course.
“Then there was like this apprenticeship, you served as a Tour pro, and it was at least five years before you really knew how to play. You’ve just seen over the last 10 to 15 years, from Jordan Spieth onwards, guys coming out of college so prepared. I’d say it’s much harder, and I probably took for granted those years where I was kind of cruising through out here. I feel like, the moment I relax, I just plummet down rankings and leaderboards and everything. There’s no letting up out here.”
2026 Tour Championship updated odds and picks
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook
Scottie Scheffler: 3-1Min Woo Lee: 7-1Chris Gotterup: 8-1Collin Morikawa: 17/2Ludvig Åberg: 10-1Viktor Hovland: 11-1Sam Burns: 16-1Tommy Fleetwood: 20-1Matt Fitzpatrick: 20-1
This feels like Scheffler’s tournament after that performance on Thursday. He missed only a couple of greens in regulation, kept the ball in front of him and cruised to a ho-hum 65 without breaking a sweat. That is scary for the rest of the field. If there is a player elsewhere to perhaps target, Xander Schauffele sits at 3 under and at 23-1 despite ranking second-to-last in approach play.