The BMW Championship is in the books, the FedEx Cup points have been calculated and we now know the 30 golfers who will be moving on to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
After the conclusion of the BMW Championship, the golfer ranked No. 1 on the FedEx Cup point list will start the Tour Championship with a score of -10, a reward for accumulating the most points throughout the season.
That golfer will be Dustin Johnson. Jon Rahm, winner of the BMW Championship, will start in the second position.
On the other end of the top 30 is Billy Horschel, the 2014 FedEx Cup winner. He is advancing in the final spot thanks in part to a double-bogey, three-putt by Corey Conners on the 18th hole on Sunday.
“You never want to see something like that happen to anybody,” Horschel said after hs round. “If it turns out that was how I made it to Tour Championship, I’ll probably give him a nice bottle of wine or a good dinner or something.”
Mackenzie Hughes was the lone golfer who jumped from outside the top 30 to inside this week, vaulting from 36th to 28th after posting scores of 69-73-69-71 at Olympia Fields. Hughes had to hole a 5-foot par putt on the last hole or else he was out and drained the right-to-left breaker.
Based on how the points-list finish, all 30 golfers will start between two and 10 shots behind the leader:
| Rank | Player | Starting position |
| 1 | Dustin Johnson | 10 under |
| 2 | Jon Rahm | 8 under |
| 3 | Justin Thomas | 7 under |
| 4 | Webb Simpson | 6 under |
| 5 | Collin Morikawa | 5 under |
| 6 | Daniel Berger | 4 under |
| 7 | Harris English | 4 under |
| 8 | Bryson DeChambeau | 4 under |
| 9 | Sungjae Im | 4 under |
| 10 | Hideki Matsuyama | 4 under |
| 11 | Brendon Todd | 3 under |
| 12 | Rory McIlroy | 3 under |
| 13 | Patrick Reed | 3 under |
| 14 | Xander Schauffele | 3 under |
| 15 | Sebastian Munoz | 3 under |
| 16 | Lanto Griffin | 2 under |
| 17 | Scottie Scheffler | 2 under |
| 18 | Joaquin Niemann | 2 under |
| 19 | Tyrrell Hatton | 2 under |
| 20 | Tony Finau | 2 under |
| 21 | Kevin Kisner | 1 under |
| 22 | Abraham Ancer | 1 under |
| 23 | Ryan Palmer | 1 under |
| 24 | Kevin Na | 1 under |
| 25 | Marc Leishman | 1 under |
| 26 | Cameron Smith | Even |
| 27 | Viktor Hovland | Even |
| 28 | Mackenzie Hughes | Even |
| 29 | Cameron Champ | Even |
| 30 | Billy Horschel | Even |
Now that the top 30 players have been assigned their starting scores for the Tour Championship, FedEx Cup points become meaningless.
Whoever wins the Tour Championship will also win the FedEx Cup and the $15 million prize.
Last season, Justin Thomas entered the Tour Championship ranked No. 1 and started at -10. Still, Rory McIlroy, who started the week fifth on the point list, wound up winning the tournament and the FedEx Cup even though he began the week five shots behind Thomas.
Among those not advancing
Adam Long was No. 27 in the points before the BMW but dropped four spots this week after posting scores of 72-77-72-71. He is the first one out, coming in at No. 31. Kevin Streelman’s disappointing week dropped him four spots to the 32nd spot. Byeong Hun An (34) and Patrick Cantlay (35) also fell short. Matthew Fitzpatrick climbed 24 spots but could only get to No. 36.
Tiger Woods, meanwhile, shot 73-75-72-71 this week to finish 11 over for the tournament and 63rd in the points race. He didn’t break par in any of the four rounds, the first time that happened since the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Because of all the shuffling due to the COVID pandemic, the final event on the 2019-20 schedule was pushed back a week from its original dates. The season finale will start Friday and conclude on Labor Day Monday, a slight change to the original PGA Tour schedule.
Golfweek’s David Dusek contributed to this article.