Tenth-ranked Patrick Cantlay simply outlasted sixth-ranked Bryson DeChambeau.
Cantlay, from Los Alamitos and UCLA, sank an 18-foot birdie putt on the sixth playoff hole to turn back DeChambeau and win the second event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md.
DeChambeau, from Clovis, then missed a nine-footer that would have extended the playoff.
“I’m a little tired, but very happy,” said Cantlay, who became the first three-time winner on the PGA Tour and won for the fifth time in his career. “I played really well all week. At the beginning of the week, I didn’t realize it would take that many under par to just force a playoff. But I hit a lot of good shots today, and it was just enough. I played really well and just tried to focus on the task at hand all day. Even some of the bad shots I hit today, just tried to reset and take it fresh from there.
“The bogey save on 17 was a tricky little putt. Obviously not the way I wanted to play that hole, but that kept me in the golf tournament, and it was a tricky putt, and saving just a bogey there and keeping me just one shot going into 18, that was a really big putt.
“And then obviously the one on 18 in regulation. But they all mattered, I guess, the same. I needed all of them.”
The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings advanced to the season-ending Tour Championship on Thursday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, with Cantlay starting at 10-under-par since he leads in points followed by Tony Finau, who won The Northern Trust last Monday, at 8-under.
Cantlay, who claimed his first FedEx Cup playoff victory, holed a 21-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation to close out a 6-under-66 and finish at 27-under 266. DeChambeau had a chance to win, but missed a birdie putt from 13 feet to also shoot 66.
DeChambeau declined interview requests when it was over.
Sungjae Im of South Korea birdied the last two holes for a 67 to finish four strokes back in third, while two-time FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy was five shots behind in fourth after his own 67, and Erik van Rooyen of South Africa punched his ticket to East Lake by making two birdies on the last three holes to wind up six down in fifth and No. 27 in the point standings.
Second-ranked Dustin Johnson, the defending FedEx Cup champion, totaled 66 and was seven strokes behind in a tie for sixth with Sergio Garcia of Spain, who had a 69 and made the Tour Championship at No. 28.
Sam Burns birdied two of the last three holes for a 70 and was eight back in solo eighth, while top-ranked Jon Rahm of Spain carded a second straight 70 to wind up one more behind in a tie for ninth with Alex Noren, who shot 66, and Abraham Ancer of Mexico, who came in at 71.
Noren made a bogey on the last hole and finished on the outside looking in at No. 33 in the points.
The ninth-ranked Finau birdied five of the last six holes to shoot 63 and tie for 11th, while fifth-ranked Justin Thomas, the 2017 FedEx Cup champion, had a 66 to wind up in a tie for 22nd that included eighth-ranked Brooks Kopeka, who finished at 68.
Seventh-ranked Louis Oosthuizen tied for 38th after a 69, Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan had a 71 to tie for 46th, Xander Schauffele of La Jolla and San Diego State, the Olympic Gold Medalist, tied for 49th after a 71, and third-ranked Collin Morikawa of La Canada Flintridge and Cal, closed with a 69 to tie for 63rd.
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