Scottie Scheffler closed 2026 with another FedExCup, another Tour Championship win and a reminder that everyone else is still chasing No. 1.
Scottie Scheffler didn’t dominate the 2026 PGA Tour season the way some expected. He still ended it as the guy nobody could knock off the mountain.
The world No. 1 closed the year by winning the Tour Championship at East Lake, earning his second FedExCup title and third PGA Tour victory of the season. He finished three shots ahead of Viktor Hovland and pushed his career total to 22 PGA Tour wins.
That’s not a bad “down year.”
Scheffler opened 2026 by winning The American Express, then had to wait until the postseason to get back into the winner’s circle.
When he finally did, he made it emphatic, crushing the field by eight shots at the FedEx St. Jude Championship before finishing the job at East Lake.
The season also produced another major milestone.
Scheffler’s Tour Championship payday pushed his career PGA Tour earnings to more than $130 million, moving him past Tiger Woods for the top spot on the Tour’s official career money list.
That number alone tells you where Scheffler sits in the modern game.
Plenty of players took swings at him this year.
Wyndham Clark won three times, including the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Matt Fitzpatrick also piled up victories.
Chris Gotterup continued his rise, while Sam Burns put together arguably his most complete season without actually winning.
Rory McIlroy made a late push. Cameron Young had his moments. Ludvig Åberg, Si Woo Kim and Viktor Hovland all found stretches where they looked capable of making Scheffler uncomfortable.
Nobody sustained it.
That’s the part that matters.
Scheffler led the Tour in wins, scoring average, strokes gained, strokes gained tee-to-green, top-five finishes, top-10 finishes, birdie average and bogey avoidance.
Even when he wasn’t collecting trophies, he was almost always hanging around the first page of the leaderboard.
That level of consistency is what separates him. Other stars had hotter stretches. Scheffler had the better season.
And after closing 2026 with another FedExCup, another trophy and another piece of history, the question heading into 2027 isn’t whether Scottie Scheffler is still the best player in golf.
It’s who, exactly, is ready to prove otherwise.
