Getting into the top 30 for the Tour Championship is the goal but more pressing is making the top 50 for the BMW.
Friday turned out to be a big day for a couple of golfers eyeing the Tour Championship.
Only the top 30 make the season-ending field at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta and Lucas Glover was 49th before the second round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. But thanks to his Friday 64, which got him to 10 under and into the outright lead at TPC Southwind, Glover rocketed up to third in the FedEx Cup Playoffs projected standings.
Jordan Spieth was also a big mover Friday, shooting a 68 to take over solo second, a shot back of Glover. That moved him from 31st, a spot outside of Atlanta, to sixth.
Other big movers up the projections: Sungjae Im went from 32nd to 18th and Lee Hodges from 35th to 30th.
Also worth noting: the change at the top, as Scottie Scheffler is now No. 1, replacing Jon Rahm atop the standings. And with Glover up to third, Rory McIlroy is bumped back to fourth, while Max Homa is also down one to fifth.
More pressing, however, is making the top 50 for next week’s BMW Championship. Here’s a look at two golfers who improved their standing, as well as the two who moved the wrong way in the points race.
Lucas Glover was asked to describe the weather Friday in Memphis. “I didn’t get this wet in the shower.”
Lucas Glover was asked to describe the weather on a hot, humid Friday afternoon in Memphis.
“I didn’t get this wet in the shower this morning,” he said.
About the only thing hotter than Memphis in August is Glover’s game of late. The 43-year-old five-time PGA Tour winner fired a 6-under 64 at TPC Southwind in the second round and grabbed the 36-hole lead at 10-under 130. He also improved to 30 under in his last six rounds while making just five bogeys during that span and shot his 20th consecutive round of par or better on Tour.
Glover won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday to vault from No. 112 in the FedEx Cup point standings to 49th and make the playoffs. After going low again and with the points awarded to the winner this week bumped up from 500 to 2,000, he’s projected to jump to third.
On Friday, Glover hit 14 greens, leads the field through two rounds in Strokes Gained: Approach and gained almost six shots on the field with his ball striking.
“It’s just kind of a carryover from the last few weeks. Just trying not to overcomplicate things and just make good, positive swings and stay aggressive. It’s one of those where you just want to keep playing. You’re playing well, keep going,” said the 19-year veteran. “I’m old enough to know it can change the other way in a hurry, too, so kind of ride the wave and just don’t over think it, keep going, and play until it runs out and then figure it out after that.”
Despite feeling that the greens were a little slower than the practice green and taking a few holes to adjust, Glover made over 100 feet of putts in the second round.
Glover has credited Jason Kuhn, a former baseball pitcher who dealt with the yips and a Navy Seal, with helping him overcome his decade-long battle with the putting yips. In May, Glover’s longtime agent Mac Barnhardt, connected the two. Kuhn had helped Atlanta Braves pitcher Tyler Matzek overcome his own issues with the yips. Also contributing to his putting revival: Glover, the 2009 U.S. Open, switched to a long putter and a split-handed grip that he says has re-wired his brain.
“Confidence is high,” Glover said. “Putting seems to be an asset instead of a weakness.”
Here are four more things to know about the second round of the 2023 FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Nothing like playing with the best golfer in the world to make you overthink your swing
Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum has played in multiple NBA All-Star Games, appeared in The Finals and is a perennial MVP candidate. So when even he starts to get nervous about an upcoming event you can tell it means a lot to him.
That was the case this week in Memphis when he took part in the FedEx St. Jude Championship Pro-Am ahead of the PGA Tour’s playoff opener. While Tatum has been playing golf for a few years now — and appears to have a decent swing — the 25-year-old said he was unable to sleep after finding out he was paired up with his favorite golfer: Jon Rahm.
“I just hope I don’t embarrass myself,” Tatum said as he was warming up. “I just want to hit a few good balls today.”
Fortunately, Tatum’s first tee shot went down the fairway and helped calm his nerves. It definitely helps that Rahm was by his side to give him a few tips, too.
Even if he’s still relatively new to the sport, Tatum already has the equipment down. The Celtics star was using a custom Scotty Cameron putter stamped with the his son’s nickname, Deuce.
(Via GolfWRX)
Having the best set of clubs on the golf course certainly counts for something, even if you don’t have the best game out there.
Former Georgia golfers make up one-tenth of the PGA Tour’s postseason field in the 2023 FedEx Cup playoffs
An impressive seven Georgia Bulldogs have qualified for the PGA Tour’s postseason. The FedEx Cup is composed of 70 golfers that performed well and finished with the highest point total during the PGA Tour regular season.
The FedEx Cup begins with FedEx St. Jude Championship from Aug. 10-13 in Memphis, Tennessee. Following this event, 20 players will be removed from the field. Another 20 players will be removed after the BMW Championship in Olympia Fields, Illinois.
Finally, the FedEx Cup playoffs will end with the Tour Championship, from Aug. 24-27, in Atlanta, Georgia. Former Georgia golfer Brian Harman won the British Open and is a contender to win the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Who are the Georgia Bulldogs that will be golfing in the FedEx Cup playoffs and what is their ranking entering the competition?
The defending champion at TPC Southwind, Will Zalatoris, will not be in the field as he hasn’t played since withdrawing from the Masters due to injury.
There are several other big names not there as well, including Justin Thomas (71) and Adam Scott (72), who missed the top-70 cutoff.
To get you ready for the home stretch of the PGA Tour season, we put together everything you need to know for every stop of the postseason including dates, course, defending champion and what’s on the line for everyone in the field.
Matt Kuchar owns the distinction of being the only player to qualify for the playoffs every year since 2007.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — And then there was one.
Matt Kuchar now owns the distinction of being the only player to qualify for the playoffs in each season since the inception of the FedEx Cup in 2007.
Kuchar finished T-39 at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday and enters the playoffs, which begin next week in Memphis, at No. 60 in the season-long point standings.
This season, only the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings qualify for the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, down from 125 (2009-2022), which made it much tougher.
After plenty of drama, only one player, tournament winner Lucas Glover advanced to the playoffs and Austin Eckroat, who entered the week at No. 70 but missed the cut, got knocked out.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Justin Thomas’s pursuit of a spot in the 2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs came down to the wire at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday. He was out, he was in, he was out again and then he nearly holed a walk-off birdie pitch but it wasn’t to be. Ben Griffin, who missed the cut this week hung on to the final spot and Thomas was the odd man out at No. 71, just nine points behind.
“I made the best out of every situation that I had. And just, I mean, fought as hard as I possibly could,” Thomas said after his round but before he learned he was officially eliminated. “That’s kind of what I’ve done my whole life, my whole career and I didn’t want to stop here.”
Thomas, who entered the week at No. 79 in the season-long points standings, shot a final-round 2-under 68 at Sedgefield Country Club to finish T-12.
Thomas had qualified for the playoffs, which begin next week with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, in each of his first eight seasons, winning the title in 2017, and finishing in the top 10 in the final standings in five of the last six seasons.
With only the top 70 advancing to the playoffs instead of 125 as in previous seasons, Thomas did everything he could to extend his season, including adding the 3M Open to his schedule last week and making his first appearance in the Wyndham since 2016. While Thomas ended up 71st, he said he gained a lot from the experience.
“I feel like I’m back to me again,” he said. “Personally, I think this was harder today than trying to win a golf tournament.”
Thomas bounced back from an opening-round 70, which dropped him to 81st in the standings, with rounds of 65-66 and entered the final round projected to finish No. 72. On Sunday, he drained a 39-foot birdie putt at No. 6, but then strung together eight straight pars, including missing an 8-foot birdie putt at 14.
Just when his chances were starting to look bleak, he took advantage of the par-5 15th, splitting the fairway with a 332-yard bomb. Walking to his ball, he turned to his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay and said, “It sure is nice to play the hole for the first time all week from the fairway.”
Thomas made the most of it, drilling a 7-iron from 214 yards to 15 feet and his downhill eagle putt trickled in. Thomas clenched his right fist and pointed to the sky. It lifted him to No. 70 in the standings. But one hole later, he made a bogey that would prove costly. The wind switched directions on him when he hit 9-iron at the par-3 16th and his ball ballooned in the air. He hit a poor chip from short of the green and missed a 30-foot par putt. At first, it didn’t hurt his position; that is until Adam Svensson made a birdie at 15 to vault ahead of Thomas in the tournament and steal some valuable points.
Thomas scrambled for par at 17 but tugged his tee shot at 18 left and into the trees. From a lie in pine straw and with a tree forcing him to hit a low hooking 8-iron, he contorted his body in a whirlybird motion reminiscent of Tiger Woods escaping trouble over the years. It was a remarkable shot, stopping 34 feet short of the flag.
Justin Thomas plays a shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the 2023 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo: Logan Whitton/Getty Images)
Thomas weighed his options: using his 56-degree wedge he determined to be the conservative play to make an up-and-down par but he elected to trap a 60-degree to try to make it, knowing that a birdie would lock up a playoff spot. His ball bounced three times and kissed the flagstick, coming to rest a foot from the hole. He put his hands on his head and fell to the ground in disbelief, knowing that he was that close to punching his ticket to Memphis in dramatic fashion.
“It would have been a lot more incredible if it would have gone in,” Thomas said.
Shortly after Thomas tapped in, play was suspended for more than 2 hours and so started Thomas’s waiting game to see if he could get any help. He recalled that in 2015 he was told his spot was secure to earn a berth in the Tour Championship but then players still on the course made birdies and he was bumped to No. 32. He knew he was going to need help, which he didn’t get, but he was proud of the fact that he’d done his part.
“I played the best I could and I fought as hard as I could and shot the lowest I possibly could,” he said.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Pressure does funny things to golfers.
Just look at the players battling to earn a spot in the FedEx Cup Playoffs at this week’s regular season finale at the Wyndham Championship. With only the top 70 moving on to Memphis, Nos. 68 Ben Griffin and “Bubble Boy” Austin Eckroat missed the cut on Friday as did Ben Taylor, Garrick Higgo, K.H. Lee, David Lingmerth, the four players who entered the week Nos. 71-74.
Meanwhile, 54-hole co-leaders Lucas Glover and Billy Horschel have zoomed from No. 112 to No. 50 and No. 116 to No. 53, respectively.
But for a true sense of how the pressure is ratcheted up at Sedgefield Country Club, here’s what two-time major champion and former world No. 1 Justin Thomas had to say.
“It’s a lot harder than trying to win a golf tournament in my opinion. I think when you’re trying to win a tournament you’re there and if you don’t win it’s a bummer, but you still had a great week kind of thing,” he said. “If I just don’t get it done for what I need to get done this week, then it sucks and my year’s over.”
Thomas entered the week at No. 79 in the season-long standings, but after shooting 66 on Saturday to improve to T-11, he’s projected to finish 72nd, 19 points out of a playoff berth. He’ll need to go low again on Sunday. Even if the 54-hole co-leaders finish 1-2, Thomas could still get in with a T-7. Data Golf gives him a 30 percent chance of making the playoffs.
But to hear Thomas tell it, that isn’t even the biggest reason he’s feeling a different brand of nerves this week.
“I want to make the Ryder Cup team so bad. I mean, it’s so important to me. I mean, I legitimately would rather make the Ryder Cup than the Playoffs, which is really, really messed up to say, but it’s just the truth,” he said.“But because of that, I think that’s why I played so poorly the last month and a half or two months. Like it’s just I’m putting so much pressure on myself to play well, it’s very similar to what happened to me in 2016.”
Thomas also addressed how he will approach Sunday’s round.
“The only way I feel I would change strategy would be in a situation where I needed to birdie the last two holes or I needed to birdie 18 or something. The hope is to go play really well tomorrow and see how close to the lead we can get, and if I do that, then should be fine,” he said. “It’s very similar to Q-School. I didn’t go into the final stage of Q-School trying to finish 45th, I went there trying to win a golf tournament. If I just came up short, then it was going to be plenty to qualify. It’s a very different but somewhat similar situation here.”
With one round to go on the Tour’s 47-event regular season, here’s what the projected standings look like from Nos. 65-80:
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Lucas Glover says the toothpaste is out of the tube, and the PGA Tour is trying to shove it back in with its latest moves.
When asked to describe the difference between this year’s top 70 advancing to the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the former model of 125, Glover didn’t hold back.
“It’s very contrived to me, the whole thing. I don’t even really understand it. I think if you finish in the top 125, I don’t know why you don’t get to play next week. That’s my opinion,” he said. “I think it’s silly that it’s only 70. I think it’s silly that we’re playing 70 in these elevated events (next year). I think it’s silly. I think it’s taken a lot of these last few tournaments of the regular season, a lot of that drama, and I just think it’s silly.”
That was the end of Glover’s press conference, who shot 66 at Sedgefield Country Club on Friday to jump into contention at the Wyndham Championship.
But Glover, the 43-year-old former U.S. Open winner, was just warming up on the topic when he continued talking exclusively to Golfweek.
“It feels like the toothpaste is out of the tube,” Glover said. “Some of the guys who were pushing for 70 are now backtracking a little bit. I don’t know if it is because they are outside the top 70 or they actually understand it’s kind of silly. We’re touting ourselves as the best Tour in the world, so why wouldn’t you reward the best 125 guys and let them play in your biggest events. Same with the elevated events. You finish 125th on the best Tour in the world, and you’re in one elevated event, the Players. That’s silly to me and always has been. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
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Glover has expressed his concerns in the past to the powers-that-be at the PGA Tour, but he doesn’t bother to do so anymore.
“It’s a waste of breath, a waste of time,” he said. “I’ve been out here long enough to know that it doesn’t matter. The PAC’s useless. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”
He continued to express his displeasure with the majority of the designated events being limited to field sizes ranging from 70-80 players starting next season.
“Maybe now we can get some smarter people in the room and talk some sense into them,” he said of the players gaining majority control of the board for the first time with the announcement this week that Tiger Woods would get a new seat on the board. “I don’t understand why it’s going to be 70-80. We’ve seen the World Golf Championship model doesn’t work. We don’t play those anymore. So, why that number? They have models and all this and that, but no one has convinced me that this is better other than the guys who stood to be rewarded the most pushed for it and our brass thought they had to appease them. If that’s the case, that’s the case, but as we’ve seen that’s not working because we have another deal in place. Obviously, what they did last year at this time (following the players-only meeting at the BMW Championship) didn’t work or else we wouldn’t have to do all this other stuff. We’ll never get somebody to admit that, but now it’s pretty obvious. They’re trying to push it back into the tube a little bit, which is pretty impossible.”
Glover also shared some strong opinions on the Tour’s framework agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which was announced on June 6.
“Something was inevitable whether it was that or private equity or something. We couldn’t continue to go down the road we were going. Anyone with a brain knows (the Tour) didn’t have the money. (LIV) was going to drag this lawsuit out as long as they could. The Tour can’t prop up $20 million purses forever, pretty sure the sponsors don’t want to do it either. They’re not getting the return. That’s evident. We know that too. We’ve got some valuations of under $5 million, and you’re asking the sponsor for $20 million. That doesn’t work. So, of course, we were going to have to do something. It was just a matter of where the money was coming from.”
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Shawn Stefani burst into tears. Chesson Hadley celebrated in his now infamous flying giraffe leap and Nick Taylor and his wife treated themselves to Frostys.
The Wyndham Championship has traditionally been the PGA Tour’s last-chance saloon, the final of 44 regular-season events to earn a spot into the FedEx Cup Playoffs and lock up a card for the following season.
At the 2016 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club, Stefani shot a pair of 66s on the weekend to finish T-14 and qualify for the playoffs at No. 123 in the standings. That year, he shed tears of joy when the PGA Tour’s Tom Alter broke the good news to him but two years later he suffered the agony of defeat, a T-22 left him on the outside looking in at No. 127.
In 2018, Canadian Nick Taylor fired a final-round 63 to make the playoffs and celebrated with wife Andie by going through the drive-thru window later that day at Wendy’s for a frosty.
But no one can match the 11th-hour heroics of Chesson Hadley, who in 2021 aced the par-3 16th and shot 62 to finish T-15 and No. 125 in the FedEx Cup standings, securing his card for next season and nabbing the final spot in the playoffs. (Justin Rose bogeyed the last hole to fall to No. 126.)
Who will salvage his season and who will have his bubble burst Sunday is the tournament within the tournament this week.
Some, like past champion J.T. Poston (No. 49) and Hideki Matsuyama (No. 56) are simply vying for spots in the top 50 to guarantee spots in the 2024 Designated Events. There’s a new wrinkle to the Sunday drama this season as only the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings will qualify for the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, down from 125 (2009-2022).
Still some time to earn Tour card
There isn’t as much pressure this week as in past years to lock up a card for the next season because players from Nos. 71 to 125 in the standings still have a chance to do so during the fall portion of the schedule.
Two players have qualified for the playoffs in each season since the inception of the FedEx Cup in 2007:
Matt Kuchar, who enters the week No. 59 in the standings and should be safe
Adam Scott (No. 81), who needs a minimum of a two-way T-9 to have a chance to move into the top 70 and a three-way T-3 or better based on the Tour’s projection
Rookie Austin Eckroat enters the week on the hot seat at No. 70.
Two-time major winner and former world No. 1 Justin Thomas has missed the cut in five of his last seven starts and enters this week at No. 79 in the standings and in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in his career. The 2017 FedEx Cup champion has advanced to the Tour Championship in each of the last seven seasons and finished in the top-10 of the FedEx Cup standings in six straight years but needs a minimum of 46 points – if no one in front of him earned a point this week – to qualify for the playoffs.
“It’s just been kind of one of those seasons, I guess, if you will,” he said. But he hasn’t given up hope. Thomas needs a solo-18th or better to have a chance to move into the top 70 and a 3-way T-4 or better to reach the top 70 based on the Tour’s projection. “I have a chance to have one of the craziest endings to a PGA Tour season and I’m going to try to do that,” he said.
Veterans battling for a spot
Among those players fighting to keep their season going include Scott, a former Masters champion and world No. 1, 2019 British Open champion Shane Lowry (No. 76) and 2013 FedEx Cup champion Billy Horschel (No. 116). Players from No. 122-No. 163 in the season-long standings are mathematically alive but have only one scenario: win and they would be in.
“Sometimes when you’re up against it like this, there’s only one real outcome,” Scott said. “It’s like qualifying for a tournament except this is kind of a four-day qualifier for me. So sometimes that can really help you, it can intensify your focus and get the job done.”
