2015 TOUR Championship: Jordan Spieth anchors tee times, pairings for Sunday’s final round

It’s fitting to have Jordan Spieth sitting on the lead at the start of the final round of the PGA Tour season. This has been Spieth’s year. He’s been the face of all this ascendant talent and will win Player of the Year regardless of what happens on Sunday. There have been other 20-something names who have broken out this season, the perfect transition to the post-Tiger era, but none have been better than Spieth.

The FedExCup has featured Spieth’s worst golf of the season. He started with back-to-back missed cuts in the first two legs of the postseason in New Jersey and Boston. After a week off, he found some form at the BMW but still never came close to challenging Jason Day. He just seemed a bit worn out and in neutral, unable to capture the game that made him the best player in the world this year. A couple improved rounds in Atlanta, however, and Spieth is back again in the driver’s seat with a $10 million bonus prize waiting for him at the end of the season on Sunday.

Despite his ugly play in the first two postseason events, Spieth accrued enough points over his amazing year to stay inside the top five in the FedExCup standings throughout the past month. That’s crucial because the top five in Atlanta hold the oft-cited “control your own destiny” power and automatically win the entire FedExCup with a TOUR Championship win. So while Spieth hasn’t played particularly well, he’s posting his best numbers at the right event in this fickle and flawed playoff system.

Unfortunately for Spieth, but fortunately for everyone tuning in, the guy he’s playing with in the anchor tee time on Sunday is also inside that top five in the standings. Saturday night was the first time Henrik Stenson did not hold a lead after playing a round in the TOUR Championship. Two years ago, he went wire-to-wire at East Lake and won the FedExCup. This year, he opened with eight birdies in his first 12 holes to race out in front of everyone else. Since that start on Thursday, however, Stenson has sputtered a bit. He opened the door for Spieth right from the start, bogeying his first hole on Saturday. A two-over back nine stretch finally knocked him off the top of the leaderboard and Spieth was there on the 18th to pour one in and take a one-shot margin to Sunday.

Spieth did not even know that putt gave him the lead until 20 minutes or so after the round. It’s far from a done deal, but Saturday’s move will make him the heavy favorite to cap his season with a FedExCup. He’s not been the best player in these playoffs, but he’s been the best this season so it would be appropriate to have him there late on Sunday.

This will likely be a two-horse race unless someone goes nuts out in front of that final pairing. Spieth is a shot ahead of Stenson, and then the next closest player is three back. This is just the second time, following last year, that two players in that top five FEC position will play in the final pairing on Sunday at the TOUR Championship. The two will go at 1:45 p.m. ET, setting up a finish on NBC just before 6 p.m. With such a small field, the most exclusive of the year, the pace should be quick and easy all afternoon.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the final round:

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