2025 BMW Championship leaderboard: Robert MacIntyre maintains distance from Scottie Scheffler after 54 holes

The second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs may be a two-man race in the final round at Caves Valley

OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Robert MacIntyre was able to maintain a healthy advantage on Scottie Scheffler after Moving Day at the 2025 BMW Championship as the world's No. 1 golfer could only knock one shot off MacIntyre's lead entering the final round at Caves Valley Golf Club. Scheffler plotted his way around a course that started to get some of its teeth back after two straight days without rain with his typically steady play, but MacIntyre maintained his nearly flawless play, finishing the third round without piling up errors despite an early miscue by bogeying the first hole.

Scheffler's only real misstep Saturday was leaving his approach in the bunker short of the 12th green from the fairway, leading to his lone bogey of the day. Beyond that, he made four birdies and kept inching closer to the young Scotsman, forcing MacIntyre tl prove that he could hold his nerve, which he will need to do for 18 more holes on Sunday.

Scheffler trimmed his deficit to three at multiple points, but MacIntyre seemed to always have an answer, holding up his end of the bargain well in the zoo that is a final pairing with the game's top player. Outside of that opening bogey, MacIntyre did well scrambling for pars until he settled down -- with no singular effort better than his escape from the trees on the 5th.

On the back nine, MacIntyre got a bit feisty as the crowd was unsurprisingly pulling heavily for Scheffler. That seemed to provide a bit of fuel for the 29-year-old, who delivered some Ryder Cup-worthy reactions to his two biggest putts on the back nine. The first came after a 6-foot par putt on the 14th as he answered a Scheffler birdie that had the grandstands buzzing and prompted one fan to say something that caught MacIntyre's attention and led to quite the response. 

Then on the 18th, with Scheffler in closer, MacIntyre poured in his latest bomb on the Caves Valley greens, pushing his lead back to four shots and giving a big fist pump to show he knew how important it was to find the bottom of the club with that stroke.

Scheffler couldn't answer with his putt, and now, he will have a significant deficit from which to battle back Sunday if he's going to prevent MacIntyre from going wire-to-wire. 

This week has been MacIntyre's best performance of his PGA Tour career through three rounds, as his 194 strokes at the 54-hole mark is a career-low total, besting his 2024 Scottish Open championship performance by one. He'll hope Sunday ends in a similar result but knows he will have to contend with one more round battling Scheffler and a crowd pulling for the world No. 1 to find the winner's circle.

MacIntyre said he wasn't surprised by the atmosphere, nor his ability to give it right back. His only request from the fans going forward is to follow long-held decorum and keep their participation between the shots.

"I totally expected to be in this situation today when I'm in this position," he said. "It's going to be the exact same [Sunday]. Yeah, I'll give as good back as I get. ... I mean, it started on the first tee. It probably started when I walked down to the range. It ain't bothering me. It's there. As long as they don't do it within -- if they do it outside the shot, it's fair game, but don't do it within the shot that's going to affect myself or Scottie."

The leader

1. Robert MacIntyre (-16): MacIntyre battled through the noise Saturday and will take a four-shot lead into the final round. He's a fiery competitor and admitted after the round that the crowd getting on him only serves to give him a little more juice -- something Scheffler noted tends to be the case after his round as well. At the same time, going up against someone as steady as Scheffler will be a test in patience for MacIntyre in the final round. Both MacIntyre and Scheffler noted that there are some aggressive pin positions at Caves Valley on steep slopes, and even quality shots often leave sweeping breaks and players will battle stressful par putts all day.

"The pins were absolutely brutal," MacIntyre said. "You want to be underneath the holes, and where they cut the pins today, you just couldn't get underneath them and you were standing there with 15 feet coming down a steep slope, a lot of time [with] a lot of break. Even the first hole, put a bunker shot to 15 feet and you're left with 4 on AimPoint, which from 15 feet you're aiming a good 3 feet outside the hole from 15 feet. So, there was massive slope." 

"They got it started today on 1," Scheffler added of the tough pins. "That pin was pretty -- on quite a bit of slope. I hit a pretty good shot in there and I got a 12-footer with a couple feet of break on it. I thought Bob made his putt on the first hole, and it was going sideways at the pin. It seemed like that pin was on 4 degrees of slope over there."

They'll likely deal with similarly challenging pins Sunday given the green complexes at Caves Valley, which will make for a fascinating final round for both players. MacIntyre handled that pressure extremely well in the third round, and his putt on the last to extend his lead back to four may prove extremely important as he's got a healthy cushion as he pursues his third career win on the PGA Tour. 

Contenders

2. Scottie Scheffler (-12)
3. Ludvig Åberg (-10)

It feels like it'll be a two-man battle in that final pairing for the BMW Championship barring something spectacular from Åberg in the penultimate pairing. The Swede sputtered out of the gate Saturday but closed strong with three birdies on the back, including a long putt on the 18th, to give himself an outside chance. He'll likely need a 64 or better Sunday to have a look at the win, but for a player who hasn't been in contention as often as expected this year, he has to be pleased to see some return to form. 

For Scheffler, he won't change his approach going into the final round, even trailing by four. He wasn't happy after his round with some of his ball-striking, as he leaked some irons and wedges off target and didn't give himself as many looks at birdie as he hoped. But with the challenge of the pins at Caves Valley, he won't take on any excessive risk, instead hoping his solid, steady approach wins out in the long run -- as it so often does. 

"It's challenging," Scheffler said about trying to make up ground on greens like at Caves Valley. "But that's what I said about giving myself a good amount of opportunities today. I wasn't as sharp as I would have hoped with the irons. I felt like I was putting kind of up and over hills a little bit today and felt like I could have put myself in better positions going into the greens."

Scheffler will look to dial those in before he tees off alongside MacIntyre at 1:40 p.m. ET on Sunday. 

Akshay Bhatia holes out -- twice

One way to avoid the challenge of putting at Caves Valley is to just hit the ball in the hole with your irons, which Akshay Bhatia did twice Saturday. His first came on the 7th, pulling back a wedge on the short par-4 for an eagle. His second was even more impressive as he made a hole-in-one on the 227-yard par-3 17th, moving himself to 4 under on the day -- all of which came on those two swings. 

Not only was it Bhatia's first hole-in-one on Tour -- to win a BMW iX, to boot -- but those two shots were enough to move him back inside the top 30 going into Sunday as he battles to make the Tour Championship. He's back to even par for the tournament standing at T22 on the leaderboard and 28th in the projected FedEx Cup standings after starting the week 29th but slipping as far back as 32nd after a rough start. 

2025 BMW Championship updated odds, picks

• Robert MacIntyre (10/19)
• Scottie Scheffler (7/4)
• Ludvig Åberg (20-1)

That putt on 18 pushed MacIntyre into being the strong favorite going into Sunday, and the way he's playing -- in particular, putting -- it's just really hard to see even Scheffler making up four shots on him on this course. It's so hard to create great birdie looks consistently on these greens, and barring MacIntyre backing up, this ends with the Scot lifting the trophy on Sunday evening. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 6:00 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

MacIntyre had eight straight pars on his back nine until he flushed a long birdie putt on 18 to card a two-under 68 for the day. He'll enter Sunday with a four-shot lead over Scheffler, who submitted a three-under 67 on Saturday. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 5:47 pm ET · Robby Kalland]

Åberg got off to a rough start to his round, but closed strong on the back nine with three birdies to get to double figures under par and give himself an outside chance going into Sunday. The Swede didn't look comfortable with his swing early in his round, but settled in for the back nine and got a bonus on the 18th with a lengthy birdie putt that provides him a little hope going into Sunday. If nothing else, Åberg has been in a funk for much of this season and seems to be finding his form at the right time for the European Ryder Cup team. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 5:41 pm ET · Robby Kalland]

For months, the European Ryder Cup projections have pointed to them effectively running back the 2023 team when they make the trip to Bethpage at the end of September. Nicolai Højgaard was expected to get replaced by his twin brother Rasmus, but otherwise Luke Donald didn't seem to have many difficult decisions. However, a late push at the end of this season by Englishman Harry Hall has put a little bit of doubt into that 12th spot, and with a 67 on Saturday at the BMW Championship, Hall is now T4 and projected to make it into the top 30 that get to the Tour Championship. 

If he can hold that position on Sunday and then put together a strong showing in Atlanta, Donald might suddenly have some more stress over his captain's picks than expected -- although nothing close to what Keegan Bradley faces on the U.S. side. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 5:02 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

Scheffler hits a long birdie putt on the par-3 14 to get to within three shots of MacIntyre, who salvaged a par on 14 after hitting a midrange putt. 

Scottie walks to 15 with four birdies and just one bogey through 14 holes. MacIntyre has pared each of his last five holes after carding a bogey and two birdies on the front-nine. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 3:56 pm ET · Robby Kalland]

MacIntyre got off to a shaky start, but the Scot has settled in and hit two gorgeous shots on the par-4 9th to set up his second birdie of the day and get into red figures for the first time in his third round. He's now 15 under, four clear of Scheffler who has had his opportunities today to pull even closer to the lead, but hasn't been able to fully apply the pressure to MacIntyre. With the group at T3 back at 8 under, it certainly looks like this will be a two-horse race and it'll be on Scheffler to make that interesting over the next 27 holes. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 3:43 pm ET · Robby Kalland]

The Ryder Cup hopeful is trying to close out his the season on a run that will earn him a selection into Bethpage, and after a so-so start at the BMW, he came alive with the low round of the day on Saturday, shooting a 5-under 65. That moved Young into T10 on the leaderboard and with other players on the Ryder Cup bubble like Chris Gotterup and Keegan Bradley struggling this week, Young continues to make an incredibly strong case for inclusion in what would be a home game in New York. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 3:30 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

Scheffler's birdie on 7, his second birdie of the round, has gotten him to within three strokes of MacIntyre, who has been playing par golf so far today. Scheffler could have gotten even closer to MacIntyre during the first seven holes, but he missed a few close birdie putts and had to settle for pars. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 2:49 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

MacIntyre tried to drive the green on the par-4 14, but his drive went into the penalty area. Scheffler didn't reach the green either on his drive, but it landed in play into a sand trap. Scheffler has a golden chance to cut into his four-shot deficit. 

Instead of taking the penalty, MacIntyre decided to hit the ball out of a forrest. He somehow did, hitting the ball on the green. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 2:18 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

Scheffler's deficit against Robert MacIntyre has already shrunk by a stroke since the two teed off about a half hour ago. But Scheffler missed a chance to within three shots of the lead after he just missed a birdie putt on 2. MacIntyre also pared 2 after having a bogey on 1. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 1:47 pm ET · Bryan DeArdo]

Askhay Bhatia just recorded a hole in one on the par-3 17. He's now at -4 and T26 entering 18 after recorded his fisrt ever hole in one on the PGA Tour. 

While he's carded bogey three times today, Bhatia has also had two birdies and two eagles that includes his hole in one on 17. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 12:45 pm ET · Robby Kalland]

Bhatia and Morikawa are both 3 under on their third rounds to get to 1 over for the tournament, which is currently T27. For Bhatia, he's inching closer to getting back inside the top 30, getting back up to 31st in the FedEx Cup standings with his play today. He still needs to work his way into the top 20, but has given himself a chance at East Lake after a dreadful start to the week. 

Morikawa, meanwhile, is just trying to find some form going into Atlanta and make sure he's part of the United States Ryder Cup team. He only has one top 10 since the Players (the Rocket Classic) and has fallen out of the conversation of being one of the elite players on Tour. He's cycled through caddies trying to figure something out, but perhaps he can put together two solid rounds on the weekend this week to create a little positivity going into the end of the season. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 11:36 am ET · Robby Kalland]

Bhatia is one of the bubble boys for the Tour Championship, starting the week 29th in the FedEx Cup standings, and after a dreadful 4 over start to his week, he'd slipped down to 32nd going into the weekend. His first six holes were rather unspectacular, but after finding the fairway on the short 7th, he could take dead aim with a wedge, throwing one over the flag and spinning it back into the cup for an eagle. 

That moved him back to 2 over and got himself to 31st in the FedEx Cup. He will need to claw his way back into red figures to make it to Atlanta next week, but a hole-out eagle goes a long way towards helping him get there. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 11:24 am ET · Robby Kalland]

Thomas and Morikawa were viewed as Ryder Cup locks early in the year, but both have slipped outside the top 6 and will need a captain's pick to get on the team. While they're both likely to make it, they do need to show some positive form after struggling for much of the second half of the season to take any doubt out of Keegan Bradley's mind. 

Neither played well the first two days at the BMW Championship and found themselves paired together at 4 over for the tournament in a Saturday morning tee time. It's a comfortable pairing as two stars who aren't strangers to each other, and they're seemingly enjoying their early walk together around Caves Valley. Both players are 2 under thru 5 on their day to get to +2 (T30) for the tournament as they try to build some positive vibes going into the Tour Championship. 

[Aug 16, 2025 at 10:00 am ET · Robby Kalland]

The battle at the top between Robert MacIntyre (-14) and Scottie Scheffler (-9) is going to be the main event, but that won't start until 2 p.m. In the meantime, we'll have our eyes on the race for the top 30 in the FedEx Cup and the battle for Ryder Cup captain's picks. 

Akshay Bhatia (+4) needs a strong round to have a chance of climbing back into the top 30, as he's slipped from 29th to 32nd. Sungjae Im (+6) has fallen from 25th to 28th and could be in trouble if he keep sliding and guys like Rickie Fowler (-3), Taylor Pendrith (-2) and Jason Day (-1) can move up into the top 10 to give themselves a chance at the top 30. 

On the Ryder Cup side, for the American team, captain Keegan Bradley needs to turn things around and finish strong or else his decision about including himself on the U.S. team is going to get tougher. Patrick Cantlay (-1), Ben Griffin (-1), Cameron Young (E), Chris Gotterup (+3), Collin Morikawa (+4) and Justin Thomas (+4) all are outside that automatic top 6 and have some work to do to try and lock up their spots on the team. Maverick McNealy (-6) and Sam Burns (-5) are putting their best foot forward this week to clutter things up even further. 

On the European side, the top 12 has been assumed for some time, but Harry Hall (-5) is trying to create some tough decisions for Luke Donald if he can stay in the top 10 to make it to the Tour Championship and then get another strong week of play there to try and play his way into Bethpage.