{"id":864908,"date":"2026-08-22T23:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864908\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T23:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:44:12","slug":"rory-mcilroy-can-join-tiger-woods-in-golf-history-at-bmw-championship-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864908\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy Can Join Tiger Woods in Golf History at BMW Championship Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Rory\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy can join Tiger Woods in golf history Sunday at the BMW Championship, giving him a milestone to chase in the final round.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy sits five shots back of Wyndham Clark entering Sunday, keeping alive his bid to match a Tiger Woods feat unseen since 1997.<\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s five-shot cushion is the largest 54-hole lead at the BMW Championship since 2019, but McIlroy has posted rounds of 64 and 65 already this week and insists Bellerive Country Club still gives him room to charge.<\/p>\n

McIlroy is chasing a piece of history that has stood since Woods\u2019 prime. No player has won the Masters Tournament and the BMW Championship, then known as the Western Open, in the same calendar year since Woods pulled off the double in 1997, according to PGA Tour Communications<\/a>. McIlroy, a past BMW Championship winner and three-time FedExCup champion, is making his 16th start at the event, the most of any player since the FedExCup era began in 2007.<\/p>\n

He built the Masters half of the equation in April. McIlroy held off Scottie Scheffler by one shot to win his second consecutive green jacket<\/a>, closing at 12 under for his sixth career major, according to Golf Channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t believe I waited 17 years to get one green jacket,\u201d McIlroy said, as quoted by Golf Channel.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy\u2019s BMW Championship Position
\n\"Tiger<\/p>\n

GettyTiger Woods in 1997.<\/p>\n

McIlroy opened with a bogey-free 6-under 64 at Bellerive, sharing the first-round lead with Clark, Gary Woodland, J.J. Spaun and Chris Gotterup after an uncharacteristic tie for 66th the previous week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. A 1-under 69 in round two dropped him off the pace as Clark matched his own opening 64.<\/p>\n

McIlroy answered on Moving Day, closing with three straight birdies on Nos. 15 through 17 for a 5-under 65 that pushed him into Sunday\u2019s final pairing<\/a> alongside Clark, according to Golf Channel. Clark, meanwhile, survived an opening double bogey, made an eagle at the par-5 eighth and ripped off four birdies in five holes on his back nine to reach 17 under.<\/p>\n

Patrick Cantlay joined McIlroy at 12 under, five shots adrift. Gotterup and Woodland sit at 11 under, with Collin Morikawa at 10 under and Sungjae Im at 9 under. Defending champion Scheffler, who has already clinched the FedExCup points lead, is well back at 5 under.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you can be aggressive here,\u201d McIlroy said of Bellerive\u2019s layout, as quoted by Golf Channel.<\/p>\n

BMW CHAMPIONSHIP \u2014 ROUND 3 LEADERBOARD<\/p>\n

Bellerive Country Club, Saint Louis, MO; August 20\u201323, 2026<\/p>\n

After Round 3<\/p>\n

Pos
\nPlayer
\nScore
\nR1
\nR2
\nR3
\nTotal<\/p>\n

1
\nWyndham Clark
\n-17
\n64
\n64
\n65
\n193<\/p>\n

T2
\nRory McIlroy
\n-12
\n64
\n69
\n65
\n198<\/p>\n

T2
\nPatrick Cantlay
\n-12
\n67
\n65
\n66
\n198<\/p>\n

T4
\nChris Gotterup
\n-11
\n64
\n67
\n68
\n199<\/p>\n

T4
\nGary Woodland
\n-11
\n64
\n65
\n70
\n199<\/p>\n

6
\nCollin Morikawa
\n-10
\n68
\n65
\n67
\n200<\/p>\n

7
\nSungjae Im
\n-9
\n67
\n64
\n70
\n201<\/p>\n

T8
\nEric Cole
\n-8
\n67
\n68
\n67
\n202<\/p>\n

T8
\nRyo Hisatsune
\n-8
\n65
\n70
\n67
\n202<\/p>\n

T8
\nMaverick McNealy
\n-8
\n67
\n66
\n69
\n202<\/p>\n

T8
\nJ.J. Spaun
\n-8
\n64
\n66
\n72
\n202<\/p>\n

T12
\nMichael Brennan
\n-7
\n69
\n65
\n69
\n203<\/p>\n

T12
\nRussell Henley
\n-7
\n67
\n66
\n70
\n203<\/p>\n

14
\nJacob Bridgeman
\n-6
\n66
\n72
\n66
\n204<\/p>\n

T15
\nAlex Noren
\n-5
\n71
\n69
\n65
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nRobert MacIntyre
\n-5
\n68
\n69
\n68
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nScottie Scheffler
\n-5
\n72
\n65
\n68
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nCameron Young<\/a>
\n-5
\n71
\n65
\n69
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nLudvig \u00c5berg
\n-5
\n66
\n70
\n69
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nRyan Gerard
\n-5
\n70
\n66
\n69
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nAkshay Bhatia
\n-5
\n67
\n68
\n70
\n205<\/p>\n

T15
\nJustin Thomas<\/a>
\n-5
\n67
\n67
\n71
\n205<\/p>\n

T23
\nSepp Straka
\n-4
\n73
\n68
\n65
\n206<\/p>\n

T23
\nAaron Rai
\n-4
\n68
\n71
\n67
\n206<\/p>\n

T23
\nSam Burns
\n-4
\n71
\n67
\n68
\n206<\/p>\n

T23
\nMatt Fitzpatrick
\n-4
\n65
\n72
\n69
\n206<\/p>\n

T23
\nViktor Hovland
\n-4
\n71
\n63
\n72
\n206<\/p>\n

T28
\nAlex Smalley
\n-3
\n69
\n68
\n70
\n207<\/p>\n

T28
\nMatthew McCarty
\n-3
\n70
\n67
\n70
\n207<\/p>\n

T28
\nAdam Scott
\n-3
\n68
\n68
\n71
\n207<\/p>\n

T28
\nXander Schauffele
\n-3
\n70
\n66
\n71
\n207<\/p>\n

T28
\nMichael Thorbjornsen
\n-3
\n66
\n66
\n75
\n207<\/p>\n

T33
\nKurt Kitayama
\n-2
\n72
\n68
\n68
\n208<\/p>\n

T33
\nKristoffer Reitan
\n-2
\n67
\n67
\n74
\n208<\/p>\n

T35
\nNicolai H\u00f8jgaard
\n-1
\n73
\n71
\n65
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nTom Kim
\n-1
\n72
\n69
\n68
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nBen Griffin
\n-1
\n68
\n73
\n68
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nJ.T. Poston
\n-1
\n70
\n70
\n69
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nRickie Fowler
\n-1
\n71
\n69
\n69
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nSi Woo Kim
\n-1
\n70
\n69
\n70
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nAlex Fitzpatrick
\n-1
\n66
\n72
\n71
\n209<\/p>\n

T35
\nJustin Rose
\n-1
\n69
\n67
\n73
\n209<\/p>\n

T43
\nBud Cauley
\nE
\n73
\n69
\n68
\n210<\/p>\n

T43
\nHideki Matsuyama
\nE
\n72
\n68
\n70
\n210<\/p>\n

T45
\nSahith Theegala
\n+1
\n71
\n72
\n68
\n211<\/p>\n

T45
\nMin Woo Lee
\n+1
\n69
\n72
\n70
\n211<\/p>\n

T45
\nRyan Fox
\n+1
\n71
\n69
\n71
\n211<\/p>\n

48
\nTommy Fleetwood
\n+2
\n69
\n69
\n74
\n212<\/p>\n

49
\nJake Knapp
\n+5
\n67
\n72
\n76
\n215<\/p>\n

50
\nNicolas Echavarr\u00eda
\n+6
\n69
\n74
\n73
\n216<\/p>\n

Leaderboard subject to change. After Round 3.Scores through 54 holes.<\/p>\n

McIlroy\u2019s Career Arc Against Tiger Woods at 37<\/p>\n

McIlroy turned 37 in May. Woods was the same age when he collected his 14th major at the 2008 U.S. Open and had piled up roughly 74 career PGA Tour wins, a pace McIlroy has never approached. McIlroy enters Sunday with six majors and 30 career Tour titles, a milestone<\/a> he reached at this year\u2019s Masters, according to Golf Channel.<\/p>\n

Still, McIlroy\u2019s recent stretch has closed some of that gap. He completed the career Grand Slam in 2025, then became the fourth player in Masters history to win back-to-back titles this April.<\/p>\n

The BMW Championship itself, the second leg of the FedExCup Playoffs, traces its roots to the Western Open<\/a>, first played in 1899, according to PGA Tour. This week\u2019s $20 million purse and $3.6 million winner\u2019s share are on the line at Bellerive, hosting the event for the first time since 2008.<\/p>\n

Clark needs one more solid round to complete a wire-to-wire runaway and boost his case for PGA Tour Player of the Year. McIlroy needs something closer to a 64 to force the issue and keep the Woods comparison alive into next week\u2019s Tour Championship.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Rory McIlroy can join Tiger Woods in golf history Sunday at the BMW Championship, giving him a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-864908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}