ATLANTA – Therapy tables crowd the normally spacious locker room at East Lake Golf Club and the recovery and cryotherapy chambers are a popular spot for players just trying to get through the final four rounds of the FedExCup season.
The condensed PGA Tour schedule — which included The Open, the Olympics and three playoff events in a seven-week stretch — have taken a toll on the game’s best players. After winning the playoff opener in Memphis, Hideki Matsuyama withdrew from last week’s BMW Championship with a lower-back injury and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler appeared to tweak his back last week in Colorado, although he said following his opening round it was nothing serious.
“I think everybody is dealing with a little something at the end of the year. It’s been a long season. Especially now with the way the new schedule is, it really is a sprint to get here,” Scheffler said.
The expansion of this year’s signature events added up to a schedule that left precious little time to rest and recover.
“There’s not really places in the schedule to take large breaks. You have the beginning of the year where you’re kind of getting warmed up in a sense, even though you’ve pretty much got to start the year ready to go,” Scheffler said. “Then March you have The Players; April, Masters; May, PGA; June, U.S. Open; July you have The Open Championship; and then you come to the Olympics and you’ve got the FedExCup playoffs.”
Xander Schauffele, who will begin the week two shots behind Scheffler under the starting-strokes format, said he’s struggled to keep his “bucket” full coming down the stretch and he made his thoughts clear when asked his “appetite for playing overseas” during the fall.
“Right now, it sounds terrible. As of right now, it sounds terrible,” Schauffele said. “My brother’s bachelor party next week sounds terrible, too. I’m in a place where I’m trying to get over this finish line and play some really good golf coming in so I can enjoy myself.”