Wyndham Clark takes 5-shot lead into BMW Championship finale

Wyndham Clark takes a five-shot lead into the final round of the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, where he'll try to close out his third PGA Tour win of the season with Rory McIlroy chasing him in Sunday's final pairing.

How big is Wyndham Clark's lead at the BMW Championship?

Clark reached 17 under through rounds of 64, 64 and 65, a stark turnaround from a year ago, when he missed the BMW Championship field entirely and finished 56th in the FedEx Cup standings. Since winning the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May, he has added a solo third at the Memorial, a T-11 at the RBC Canadian Open and a U.S. Open title at Shinnecock Hills for his second career major, along with a T-5 at the Travelers Championship. He missed the cut at both the Open Championship and the Rocket Classic late in the regular season before a top-5 finish at last week's FedEx St. Jude Championship.

A win Sunday pays $3.6 million and locks in the No. 3 seed in the season-long points standings heading to the Tour Championship. Clark knows a big lead is no guarantee: he held a six-shot cushion through three rounds at this year's U.S. Open and needed a two-putt par from more than 50 feet on the 72nd hole to close it out.

Who is chasing Clark on Sunday?

McIlroy arrives in the final pairing after a rough week in Memphis, where he finished 8 over and tied for 66th out of 68 players. He has reversed that form at Bellerive, ranking inside the top 10 in the field in strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained putting and strokes gained approach through three rounds. Cantlay is tied with McIlroy at 12 under as he chases his first win since the 2022 BMW Championship, which he took with a birdie on the 17th hole at Wilmington Country Club. Collin Morikawa, who ended a nearly five-year winless run at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February before a back injury cost him nearly a month, is also within range after top-10s at the Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Masters and the RBC Heritage.

What's on the line in the FedEx Cup standings?

There are 50 players in the BMW Championship field, but only the top 30 in the season-long FedEx Cup points standings after Sunday will advance to next week's Tour Championship, where $40 million in prize money is up for grabs. That cutoff leaves plenty of players outside the top handful of the leaderboard still playing for their playoff lives on the back nine at Bellerive.

Why does Bellerive's sixth hole matter?

At 215 yards, the par-3 sixth requires players to carry nearly the full distance over a pond that guards the front and right of the green, with a bunker waiting behind for shots hit too far. A collection area of short grass sits long and left as a bailout, but it leaves an awkward pitch back to a green with a severe back-to-front slope. Through three rounds it has produced just 17 birdies against 36 bogeys or worse, the toughest ratio on the course, and it's likely to swing at least one contender's round on Sunday. The forecast calls for a high near 85 degrees with a heat index approaching 90.