Robert TheodorsonThe Caves Valley Golf Club plays host to the 2025 BMW Championship this weekend, a tournament that will determine the final thirty golfers worthy of competition for the TOUR Championship next week in Atlanta.
Caves Valley last hosted The BMW Championship in 2021. Patrick Cantlay won the high-scoring affair in a playoff against Bryson DeChambeau. Cantlay and reigning BMW Championship winner Keegan Bradley will be considered among the favourites from the field along with Rory McIlroy, JJ Spaun, and Scottie Scheffler.
While it will be difficult to replicate the finish to The FedEx. St. Jude Championship where Justin Rose bested JJ Spaun in a dramatic three-hole playoff, we believe this iteration of The BMW Championship is up to the task!
The DMV area has hosted several incredible professional tournaments recently: the Solheim Cup, The Senior PGA Championship, LIV Virginia, and now to close out the season The 2025 BMW Championship.
We’re ready to tee off on the second leg of these playoffs and these are the storylines we’ll be watching for this weekend!
Can Anyone Beat Scottie Scheffler?
Although the two-time major champion winner on the 2025 season didn’t come away with another ‘W’ in Memphis, he is still without a doubt, the golfer to beat this weekend.
Coming in a very close 3rd place in Memphis and earning a cool $1.2M in the process, Scheffler has been a threat to win every tournament this season.
Having a target on his back since the day after the 2025 PGA Championship, the pressure of being the world’s number one golfer hasn’t seemed to faze Scheffler one bit.
Win or come in 30th, Scheffler is the most successful golfer of the year already, so expect the BMW Championship to be somewhat of a low-key, low-pressure situation for Scottie who is dialled in every single week no matter the situation.
Also, remember that last season it seemed Scheffler couldn’t stop winning after the playoffs. Bringing home the Gold Medal for himself and the United States of America, Scottie also spent his winter winning a championship in The Bahamas and bested Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a 2v2 duel in Las Vegas just before Christmas.
For Scheffler, there seems to be no lull in the season, no extended downtime, just 100% effort week in and week out.
Who are the Biggest Names Likely to Get Bounced?
Last weekend, the FedEx St. Judes Championship saw the exit of big PGA Tour names such as: Min Woo Lee, Jason Day, Tony Finau, and Shane Lowry. A diminished field makes for more drama and pressure, but it also has the potential to rob the fans of seeing several of their favourite golfers.
Due to the high-scoring nature of Caves Valley, those who can run up the score will thrive and survive. 2025 major winners Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, and JJ Spaun should advance without too many issues.
Spaun showed last weekend, even in a playoff loss, that he can regularly show up at the top of the leaderboard, be it Memphis or having the only below-par score at Oakmont back in June.
Likewise, those like Tommy Fleetwood and Colin Morikawa, both winless on the season but always in the mix, should be comfortable bets to move on to Atlanta. Neither golfer has had too many issues with falling behind the pack this season, and the BMW Championship is all about being just good enough to advance one last time.
Household names like Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, and (shockingly) Xander Schauffele can go from legitimate contender to hanging on by a thread, and back again.
Could this trio of champions become the next victims of the next twenty-man cut? Each has their followings, as will be evidenced by the crowds in Maryland this week, but each has had their own unique issues with play this season.
Can Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley Repeat as Champion?
American Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley has a difficult choice ahead of his before Bethpage Black in September.
Bradley, one of the most successful and in-form members of The PGA Tour this season must decide whether he wishes to sit back to coach and command his American team, or step in, take a more active role, and lead by example.
On a personal level, it is a nice dilemma to have. Playing so well throughout the year, Bradley, and most likely all other American golfers want Keegan to play, it doesn’t even seem to be a question for some of the locked-in guys like Scottie Scheffler or Bryson DeChambeau.
Last season’s BMW Championship victor, another win at Caves Valley or next week in Atlanta would completely end the discussion as to whether Bradley should play or not.
However, it is more likely that the question will be answered simply with a good performance at Caves Valley, surviving the cut, and establishing himself as one of the thirty best PGA Tour golfers of the 2025 season.
The Return of Rory McIlroy
Time will tell if the highly controversial and somewhat questionable call to skip the first leg of the playoffs will pay off for the world’s number two golfer.
A multiple tournament winner (including The Masters) in 2025, it is extremely doubtful that McIlroy will have picked up any rust skipping the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
In 2021, Rory came in 4th place with a score of 22-under par, a score usually good enough to win any other tournament you can name.
Ultimately, fans will be more forgiving to the most recent green jacket winner for taking (another) short break from a signature event. The last time McIlroy missed a couple of tournaments in a row, the result was a T2 finish at The Genesis Scottish Open.
Able to run up the score even when he’s just mediocre, Rory’s game will be a great fit for the high-scoring affair at Caves Valley Golf Club.
For McIlroy, winning The BMW Championship would be a step towards reclaiming the number one spot in the OWGR, a rank he has not held since February of 2023. Scottie Scheffler won’t be so easily dislodged, but Rory figures to dip into The DP World Tour events with some regularity as autumn begins to fall.
This BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club is for Fans of High Scoring
Patrick Cantlay beat LIV’s Bryson DeChambeau with a score of 27-under par back in 2021. There is no reason to believe this year’s eventual winner can get away with anything less than finishing in the mid-20s by the end of Sunday.
In fact, several premier golfers came close to beating Cantlay with their high-scoring affairs. Bryson DeChambeau (-27), Sung-jae Im (-23), Rory McIlroy (-22), Erik van Rooyen (-21), and Sergio Garcia and DJ with (-20) all proved themselves worthy contenders.
Of course, the world record holder for best final tournament score, Hideki Matsuyama, who won The Sentry with an astonishing 35-under par could very well be up to the task to best his own record.
