ATLANTA – Remedy tables crowd the usually spacious locker room at East Lake Golf Membership and the restoration and cryotherapy chambers are a well-liked spot for gamers simply making an attempt to get via the ultimate 4 rounds of the FedExCup season.
The condensed PGA Tour schedule — which included The Open, the Olympics and three playoff occasions in a seven-week stretch — have taken a toll on the sport’s finest gamers. After successful the playoff opener in Memphis, Hideki Matsuyama withdrew from final week’s BMW Championship with a lower-back damage and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler appeared to tweak his again final week in Colorado, though he mentioned following his opening spherical it was nothing severe.
“I feel everyone is coping with slightly one thing on the finish of the 12 months. It’s been a protracted season. Particularly now with the best way the brand new schedule is, it truly is a dash to get right here,” Scheffler mentioned.
The enlargement of this 12 months’s signature occasions added as much as a schedule that left valuable little time to relaxation and get better.
“There’s not likely locations within the schedule to take massive breaks. You’ve the start of the 12 months the place you’re type of getting warmed up in a way, despite the fact that you’ve just about obtained to start out the 12 months able to go,” Scheffler mentioned. “Then March you will have The Gamers; April, Masters; Might, PGA; June, U.S. Open; July you will have The Open Championship; and then you definately come to the Olympics and also you’ve obtained the FedExCup playoffs.”
Xander Schauffele, who will start the week two photographs behind Scheffler below the starting-strokes format, mentioned he’s struggled to maintain his “bucket” full coming down the stretch and he made his ideas clear when requested his “urge for food for enjoying abroad” throughout the fall.
“Proper now, it sounds horrible. As of proper now, it sounds horrible,” Schauffele mentioned. “My brother’s bachelor occasion subsequent week sounds horrible, too. I’m in a spot the place I’m making an attempt to recover from this end line and play some actually good golf coming in so I can take pleasure in myself.”
