After a year’s worth of golf, good shots and bad, victories and close calls, the 2024 PGA Tour season comes down to one final event, the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. The winner on Sunday from the 30-player field will claim not just the tournament title but also the FedEx Cup and its $25 million reward for the culmination of a year’s worth of golf.

As has been the case the past two years, Scottie Scheffler arrives in Atlanta this week with an early advantage. The Tour Championship’s staggered start format gives the leader in the FedEx Cup points list entering the tournament a two-stroke on his nearest rival (this year it’s Xander Schauffele) and an even bigger advantage on every other player competing. Scheffler will start the tournament at 10 under par, while Schauffele begins at eight under. Below is the starting positions for everybody playing at East Lake.

You could make the argument that just a two-shot advantage for Scheffler is not much considering how far ahead he was in the FedEx Cup points list (more than 1,000 compared to Schauffele), but the scale isn’t adjusted in that way. Scheffler might feel this way too considering that the head start hardly means he’s a lock to win. On the contrary, both of the last two years he was caught from behind, in 2022 by Rory McIlroy and a year ago by Viktor Hovland. Same with Justin Thomas when he was the leader going into the first year of the staggered start in 2019.

The other reason for Scheffler to be worried? His personal track record at East Lake is only so-so where as Schauffele’s is solid. Scheffler’s scoring average in 16 career rounds is 68.44. Meanwhile, Schauffele’s is 66.96, including a win on the course in the pre-staggered start days in 2017. He shot the lowest scores on the course in 2020 if you didn’t account for the staggered start.

Long story short, nothing is settled just yet as the tour’s final event of 2024 arrives.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout, E