For the majority of PGA Tour members, it’s time to put up or shut up.
The Wyndham Championship, beginning Thursday in Greensboro, N.C., marks the regular-season finale and the final opportunity for players to lock in one of 70 FedEx Cup playoff berths.
The top 70 players in the points race following the Wyndham qualify for the FedEx St. Jude Championship next week. It’s then whittled down to 50 for the BMW Championship and 30 for the season-ending Tour Championship.
So while the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele don’t need to play this week, anyone near that bubble or on the outside looking in is on the property at Sedgefield Country Club this week for one last shot at FedEx Cup points. Every player between Nos. 61 and 125 in the current standings are in the field, according to the tour.
The current No. 70 is Jackson Koivun, who turned pro in July and earned his first professional win before the month was out, beating Scheffler by three shots at the 3M Open. Suddenly, that put the playoffs in reach for the 21-year-old.
“I had full faith that I was going to be able to give myself a shot at the playoffs. That was never out of the picture in my mind,” Koivun said Wednesday. “Obviously the win at 3M really boosted that, but I still felt like I could go out there and play some good golf and give myself a chance.”
The first two names on the outside looking in are Mac Meissner and Keegan Bradley. Jason Day of Australia (No. 75), Tom Hoge (No. 79), Brooks Koepka (No. 86) and Tony Finau (No. 89) are some of the other recognizable names with an outside shot at entering that top 70 with a win or strong finish this weekend.
The players barely clinging on in the top 70 are also trying not to stumble or miss the cut at the Wyndham and be passed by. Those include Brian Harman, probably safe at No. 63; Ricky Castillo, No. 66 despite a win in an alternate event this season; and Steven Fisk at No. 69.
Sedgefield Country Club has hosted every Wyndham Championship since 2008. The par-70 course will play 7,131 yards this week and has yielded a winning score of 20 under par or better eight times in the last 10 editions.
Cameron Young tied the 72-hole scoring record last year at 22-under 258, beating Meissner by a whopping six shots for his first PGA Tour victory. With that breakthrough win behind him, Young went on to win The Players Championship and the Cadillac Championship this year and rise to No. 3 in the world, making the defending champ the highest-ranked player in the field this week.
“I’ve had my time at home (since the Open Championship) and at the end of the year here I just wanted to play as much as I could, trying to give myself a chance to get as many points as I could,” Young said. “I’ve played here twice and I’ve played really well twice, so I feel like in a sense yes, a no-brainer to come back and come play again.”
Brandt Snedeker will be a popular figure around the course this week, and not only because he is a fan favorite who shot a 59 in the first round at Sedgefield in 2018.
Snedeker will captain the U.S. team for the Presidents Cup next month at Medinah Country Club near Chicago. He’ll have six captain’s picks to use for his roster (six automatically qualify), making for an interesting subplot to the action this week.
“For Jackson (Koivun), it’s a unique case because he really hasn’t played that many events as a professional,” Snedeker said.
“… There’s probably 20, 22 guys that have a chance of making this team right now so it’s kind of wide open. There’s guys who played great golf over two years that are right there that probably deserve to be picked and deserve to be on this team. The golf’s going to dictate what happens from here.”
