Schauffele: Being the best is motivator, not inflated purses

Whichever golfer wins next week's Tour Championship will also hoist the Fed ExCup - and he will go home with a combined $25 million (around €22m) for his trouble.

A few years into the LIV Golf-prompted era of massive earnings in men's professional golf, players like world number two Xander Schauffele don't have to worry about having enough money to pay their teams and support their families.

Ahead of the BMW Championship in Colorado, Schauffele said that there's a different motivating factor on his mind at this stage of his career - turning that number two into a number one.

It won't happen anytime soon because Scottie Scheffler has built up an unimpeachable lead in the Official World Golf Ranking's points system. In almost any other situation, Schauffele - who won his first two career major championships this year - would have done enough to ascend to number one.

"Becoming No. 1 in the world? It's a very big goal of mine, yes," Schauffele told reporters, "and I've been told, yes, that Scottie is an outlier in several years, and I would be (No. 1). But it's not really good enough, is it?

"That doesn't take away from what I've done or how I feel. I'm proud with the work that I've put in and with the people that are around me and that have helped me.... I'm just going to keep knocking. That's what I do."

Schauffele continued his high praise for Scheffler, who added an Olympic gold medal to his six PGA Tour victories this season.

For the second straight week, the two Americans were paired together for the first two rounds of the BMW, the middle of three legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Schauffele was asked if he ever gets caught up in the battle between them; they're competing not only for FedEx Cup points and world ranking points,