Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy paired again at Tour Championship

The top two players in the world will play at least one more round together this PGA Tour season, as Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy will make up the final pair of the first round of the Tour Championship.
Scheffler and McIlroy finished 1-2 in the FedEx Cup standings following Scheffler’s victory at the BMW Championship on Sunday. The Texan and Northern Irishman also played together on Thursday and Friday at the BMW.
The Tour Championship had used a staggered start based on “starting strokes” since 2019, in which No. 1 in the season-long standings would begin the tournament at 10 under par, No. 2 would be 8 under and so on. That was eliminated this year — all 30 players in the field will begin at even par, and the top player after 72 holes will win both the tournament and the FedEx Cup.
Despite that change, the PGA Tour opted to pair golfers up for the first round based on the points standings.
Scheffler and McIlroy will tee off at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday at East Lake Golf Club, with Scheffler vying to win back-to-back FedEx Cups and McIlroy aiming for the fourth of his career.
Just before them are another duo that’s seen plenty of one another this summer. U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun and Englishman Justin Rose are 3-4 in the points standings and will tee off together at 1:49 p.m.
Spaun and Rose went to a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship two weeks ago, with Rose winning on the third hole. Then they were paired together to start the BMW.
Other notable pairings are No. 5 Tommy Fleetwood of England and No. 6 Ben Griffin; Harris English and Justin Thomas; Cameron Young and Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg; Collin Morikawa and Norway’s Viktor Hovland; and Hideki Matsuyama of Japan and Irishman Shane Lowry.