Tommy Fleetwood Wins the TOUR Championship and FedExCup for His First PGA TOUR Title

The Travelers slipped away on the last green. Memphis slipped away over the last three holes. On Sunday at East Lake, Tommy Fleetwood finally got to the 18th hole with nothing left to lose.

Fleetwood closed with a 2-under 68 to win the TOUR Championship at 18-under 262, three shots clear of Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley. It is Fleetwood's first PGA TOUR title, in his 164th start, and because this was the first TOUR Championship with no starting strokes, the win also made Fleetwood the FedExCup champion, worth $10 million.

Sunday Started Sideways for Cantlay

Fleetwood and Cantlay began the day tied at 16 under, and the showdown was lopsided within two holes. Cantlay opened bogey, double bogey, the double coming at the par-3 2nd, while Fleetwood parred the 1st and birdied the 2nd. Just like that, the gap was four.

Fleetwood gave a shot back at the 5th, then birdied the 6th and 7th and made the turn three clear. It looked like the procession nobody expected. Then the 10th happened. Fleetwood hooked the tee shot into the left rough and made bogey, and Cantlay rolled in a 5-footer for birdie. The lead was one.

The Response

This is where the old script would have kicked in, and where Fleetwood tore it up. Cantlay bogeyed the par-3 11th. Fleetwood then hit wedges into the 6-foot range at the 12th and 13th and converted both. Cantlay matched only one of them, and the margin was back to three.

There was still one more scare. The peninsula-green 15th had cost Fleetwood a double bogey on Saturday, and on Sunday the tee shot found the water again. This time the damage was a bogey. When Cantlay bogeyed the 16th, the last real threat disappeared, and Fleetwood was left to walk up 18 with thousands around the green chanting "Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!"

The par putt dropped, the cap came off and Fleetwood let out a yell that had been building for years. Justin Rose and Shane Lowry stuck around to celebrate.

"When you've lost it so many times, a three-shot lead down the last doesn't feel like that many," Fleetwood said, per the AP. "This wasn't the most comfortable I've been."

A Breakthrough by the Numbers

Fleetwood's card had five birdies and three bogeys. Over four days, Fleetwood led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting at 8.148, more than double the next best, and posted rounds of 64, 63, 67 and 68.

The history here is what makes it land. Fleetwood had 44 top-10 finishes on TOUR before this win, the most by any player before a first title in at least four decades, according to the PGA TOUR. Fleetwood is the first player since Chad Campbell in 2003 to make the TOUR Championship a first career TOUR win, and Fleetwood became the first player to finish inside the top six after every round of the Playoffs, per Golf Today. All 12 of those Playoff rounds were in the 60s.

"It's easy to say you're resilient but it's hard when you have to be," Fleetwood said, per the AP. Fleetwood also called the win the piece that "completes the story of the near-misses."

The tributes matched the moment. Tiger Woods posted that "no one deserves it more," and Rory McIlroy put it plainly: "I think it shows how great of an attitude he has towards the game, how resilient he is," McIlroy said, per the AP. Lowry offered the line that sums up the summer: "He keeps getting knocked down and keeps getting back up and coming back stronger," Lowry said, per the PGA TOUR.

The Chase Behind

Cantlay fought back from that opening stumble to make a real race of it but finished with a 71, a card with four birdies, three bogeys and that double. Cantlay led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach for the week, which tells you how close the 2021 FedExCup champion came.

Henley, the 61 man from Thursday, could not find another gear. Henley went 13 straight holes without a birdie and shot 69 to share second, a second straight top-five finish at East Lake.

Scottie Scheffler's bid for back-to-back FedExCup titles started with a jolt. The opening tee shot went left, under a fence and out of bounds, and Scheffler still saved bogey with an up-and-down from 201 yards. Three birdies in four holes, including a 40-footer at the 9th, got Scheffler moving, but a missed 5-footer at the 10th and a 5-iron into the water at the 15th for double bogey ended it. Scheffler shot 68 and tied for fourth.

The Rest of the Board

Corey Conners shot the round of the day, a bogey-free 62, to jump into that tie for fourth at 14 under alongside Scheffler and Cameron Young, who closed with 66 and kept strengthening a case for a first Ryder Cup team. Viktor Hovland and Brian Harman each shot 63.

Keegan Bradley got within one of the lead on the front nine before fading to a 70 and a tie for seventh with Justin Thomas and Sam Burns. Bradley called himself "dead tired" afterward, and the U.S. Ryder Cup captain now has six picks to make, possibly including himself.

What It Means

For years, Fleetwood has been tagged as the best player without a PGA TOUR win, a label that was half compliment and half curse. That conversation is over. Fleetwood leaves Atlanta with a TOUR exemption through 2030, the FedExCup and the Calamity Jane replica putter. The near-miss guy finally finished.

"You cannot win plenty if you don't win the first one," Fleetwood said, per Golf Today.

Relive how Sunday was set up in our Round 3 recap, and catch up on Round 1 and Round 2. Final scoring is on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and the TOUR's winner's story (opens in a new tab) has more.

Sources: PGA TOUR (final-round recap, winner's story and leaderboard), AP, Golf Today. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.