In this week’s “The Starter,” Wyndham Clark answers a disappearing lead with three closing birdies at the BMW Championship, Scottie Scheffler reaches East Lake after playing through hand, foot and mouth disease, and Miyu Yamashita matches the LPGA Tour’s 72-hole scoring record in Edmonton. The week’s winners did not control Sunday in the same way. Clark had to recover it. Yamashita never surrendered it.

PGA TOUR: Wyndham Clark Finds Another Finish

Clark began Sunday at Bellerive Country Club five strokes ahead of Rory McIlroy and Patrick Cantlay. The advantage looked substantial, but it carried its own burden. Clark later acknowledged that playing from that position can feel as though the only available mistake is to give the tournament away. Early “dumb bogeys” and a cold putter brought that possibility into view.

By the back nine, the five-shot lead was gone. McIlroy pulled even for several holes and gave himself chances to move ahead at Nos. 14, 15 and 16, but none of the putts fell. Clark finally changed the direction of the round with a birdie at the par-3 16th, then birdied Nos. 17 and 18 to finish with an even-par 70 and a 17-under total of 263.

The closing stretch turned a threatened lead back into a three-shot victory over Cantlay and a four-shot margin over McIlroy. Clark said he kept hearing the instruction to “swing free,” a useful message only after the tournament had tightened enough to demand a choice. He could continue protecting what remained, or return to the golf that built the lead. Three birdies supplied the answer.

It was Clark’s sixth PGA Tour victory and his third of 2026, following wins at the CJ Cup, Byron Nelson and U.S. Open. He became the first player since Dustin Johnson in 2016 to win the U.S. Open and BMW Championship in the same season. Clark also moved to No. 3 in the FedEx Cup standings and qualified for the Tour Championship for the third time.

McIlroy’s third-place finish should not be reduced to another unsuccessful pursuit. He shot 69, reached a share of the lead and produced his best golf on the back nine. A poor layup decision on the par-5 17th cost him one more opportunity, but the week still represented progress after he arrived dissatisfied with the state of his game.

McIlroy left Bellerive saying he was closer than he had been at the beginning of the week, even if he remained unhappy with his swing. He also recognized the value in contending without feeling technically settled. Clark departed with proof that he could recover a Sunday that had changed shape. McIlroy carried away evidence that his competitive game could return before complete comfort did.

East Lake Brings Health and Field Questions

The Tour Championship will begin with all 30 qualifiers on level terms. Starting Strokes were eliminated after the 2024 season, so the lowest 72-hole score at East Lake will decide both the tournament and FedEx Cup. That change makes current form more important than the numerical order in which the field arrives.

Scottie Scheffler will arrive at No. 1 in the standings for the fifth consecutive year, but his immediate concern is health rather than position. Scheffler revealed Sunday that symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease began Monday, one day after his eight-stroke victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Blisters on his hands made gripping the club painful, while the illness limited his normal workouts, practice and warmup.

Scheffler followed an over-par opening round with three rounds in the 60s and tied for 12th, an outcome that reads differently with the illness known. Elsewhere, Gary Woodland moved from 31st to 18th with a tie for fourth and qualified for East Lake for the first time since 2019. Cantlay climbed from 43rd to 19th, and Robert MacIntyre advanced from 36th to 25th.

Kurt Kitayama, Rickie Fowler and Bud Cauley fell outside the top 30. The final field also includes six first-time Tour Championship participants: Ryan Gerard, Kristoffer Reitan, Min Woo Lee, Alex Smalley, Alex Fitzpatrick and Ryan Fox. Their arrival gives the finale needed movement rather than simply returning the same established cast. With every player starting even, qualifying is entry into one more full competition, not a reward that predetermines it.

LPGA Tour: Miyu Yamashita Leaves No Opening

There was far less Sunday uncertainty at the CPKC Women’s Open. Yamashita completed a wire-to-wire, nine-stroke victory at Royal Mayfair Golf Club with rounds of 62, 64, 65 and 66. Her 23-under total of 257 matched the LPGA Tour’s 72-hole scoring record. Yuri Yoshida finished second at 14 under, a score that would normally create pressure but never brought her close enough to alter Yamashita’s decisions.

Yamashita’s closing 66 was especially revealing because it did not depend on her best ball-striking round. She hit seven of 14 fairways and 10 of 18 greens, her lowest totals of the week in both categories, yet needed only 24 putts and did not record a three-putt for the tournament. Her birdie at the 18th turned a commanding victory into a record-matching one.

The victory was Yamashita’s fourth on the LPGA Tour and second this season. She reached four wins in 42 starts, faster than any previous Japanese player, and did it one event after missing the cut at the AIG Women’s Open. Her four LPGA Tour victories have also come in four countries: Wales, Malaysia, the United States and Canada. The geography is varied. The speed of her development is becoming much harder to miss.

The Closing Thought

Scorecards flatten both Sundays into numbers. Clark’s 70 looks ordinary beside Yamashita’s 66, while their final margins conceal how differently control was built. Clark’s advantage disappeared before three closing birdies restored it. Yamashita maintained separation even when her ball-striking became less precise.

Neither winner controlled every part of the final round. They controlled what the round could become. Sometimes that means recognizing when protection is no longer working. Sometimes it means finding another way to score when the swing is not producing the same number of fairways and greens. The scorecard records the result. The more useful story is how each player kept the next decision from belonging to the previous one.