Signature Scroll: There’s another awards race brewing at BMW Championship

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Checking in from St. Louis and only mildly upset the Cardinals are out of town ...

What about Rookie of the Year?

ST. LOUIS – The first 9-wood apexed at 188 feet. I assumed it was a mishit, a pop-up in the St. Louis sky. The next apexed at 8 feet, and I was sure that he must not have caught it clean.

Nope, both were very much intentional. Alex Fitzpatrick was just demonstrating to us the variety of shots he can pull from in any given scenario. Both the towering fly ball and the stinger have a place in Fitzpatrick’s arsenal, he explained from Bellerive Country Club’s driving range on Wednesday morning.

The younger Fitzpatrick plays a distinctly different game than his older brother. Matt Fitzpatrick is analytical and meticulous. Alex Fitzpatrick is all feel. That dichotomy has been a joy to watch unfold.

The emergence of the Fitzpatrick brothers is one of the stories that will define the 2026 season. The elder has blossomed into one of the best five players on TOUR, and the younger went from relative anonymity to a TOUR winner at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and a TOUR Championship participant in less than five months.

Both are in the heat of two award races. Matt is vying for Player of the Year and Alex for Rookie of the Year.

Yet if you ask Matt, there’s only one Fitzpatrick brother with a legitimate shot to win as it stands now.

“I think a certain someone's sewed it up last week,” Matt said, alluding to Scottie Scheffler’s eight-shot victory that, at least in Matt's eyes, has wrapped up the Player of the Year race for now. His opinion was shared by Rory McIlroy, who was asked about his own chances if he were to do something special over the next two weeks.

“No chance. Scottie is,” McIlroy said.

The victor is much less clear in the other awards race, where Kristoffer Reitan, Jackson Koivun and Alex Fitzpatrick are battling to win the Arnold Palmer Award as the Rookie of the Year. Reitan has the best win: the Truist Championship, a Signature Event. Koivun has the buzz, fresh out of college with a victory over Scheffler at the 3M Open.

Alex's case is more holistic. The win alongside his brother is perhaps not even the highlight of his resume. Instead, Fitzpatrick joined the TOUR unexpectedly midseason and didn’t miss a beat. He played in four Signature Events and finished in the top 10 in all four, including a solo fourth at Quail Hollow, where Reitan won.

“He's done fantastically well,” said McIlroy, a long-time admirer of Fitzpatrick’s game.

Koivun’s season ended last week in Memphis, but Reitan and Fitzpatrick will go the distance, ranked side-by-side in the FedExCup, 19th and 20th, respectively. Both are assured to be at the TOUR Championship next week.

That week could be the deciding factor. I’m not sure of much after my range session with Alex, but I’m sure of that. Who can top the other at the TOUR Championship will likely have the inside track at the award.

Playing through

• 💰 Who are the experts picking at Bellerive? Surprisingly, Scheffler did not sweep the board.
• ❌ Who is at risk of missing the TOUR Championship? Here are the big names on the bubble …
• 📺 PGA TOUR golf is back on linear ESPN again. Here are the details ...

Bubble watch

Another week, another bubble. The field of 50 will be trimmed to 30 after this week’s BMW Championship, and it carries another set of implications. For starters, those 30 will play at the TOUR Championship for the chance to be crowned the FedExCup champion. The other carrot? Exemptions into next year’s majors.

That holds particular importance for someone like Adam Scott, who's holding onto a streak of 100 straight major championships and is flirting around the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking, the popular cutoff for exemptions.

“I've found myself more often over the last few years, you know, trying to get myself qualified for everything. So that would be great going into next year,” Scott said.

For most, that means they have the Masters in mind. The only player who is trying to play their way into their first trip to Augusta National is Alex Fitzpatrick, who said: “That was the one I dreamed of as a kid. Spent enough time going with my brother that I got fed up with going.” At 20th in the standings, it is all but assured that he will have a spot in the field.

But that is not the case for players like Rickie Fowler (30th), Gary Woodland (31st), Robert MacIntyre (36th) or Patrick Cantlay (43rd). That popular quartet all need good weeks to lock up their spot at Augusta National.

Here’s a look at the scenarios for a few of the top names. Reminder: This is just the bare minimum they could do to have a mathematical chance. Most likely, they will need to do even better.

• Fowler: solo 50th
• Woodland: solo 48th
• MacIntyre: three-way tie for 15th
• Cantlay: solo seventh
• Justin Thomas: solo seventh
• Sahith Theegala: three-way tie for second

Parting shots

• 🇰🇷 Si Woo Kim has 11 top 10s this season. That’s as many as he had in the previous three seasons combined. He’s the Internationals’ best player with a month to go before the Presidents Cup.
• 🏌️ McIlroy said his swing will likely require extra attention in the offseason and could lead him to miss some tournaments this winter that he likes to play. He went through a similar process in 2024, and it led to a great start in 2025. He said Wednesday that he may do the same this year.
• 🇺🇲 Woodland has not made the TOUR Championship since 2019, the year he won the U.S. Open. At 31st in the standings, he can change that. Other news: Woodland was named a Presidents Cup U.S. Team captain's assistant on Wednesday.
• 📚 Viktor Hovland has officially reunited with Joe Mayo, who he called “the main man now.” Hovland experienced the best run of his career while working with Mayo in 2023.
• 📊 Per Data Golf, No. 26 Tom Kim has a 96.6% probability of advancing to the TOUR Championship. That means there are four players at risk of dropping out of the top 30, beginning with Scott at No. 27.
• Most range balls hit this week, by day … Monday: MacIntyre (164); Tuesday: McIlroy (172); Wednesday: Hovland (176).