FedEx Cup bubble watch: Who’s in danger of missing the playoffs?

It’s hard to believe, but the PGA Tour regular season ends this week at the Wyndham Championship.

For the second time since the PGA Tour created the new FedEx Cup playoff structure, just 70 players will move on from the regular season to the first playoff event next week, the FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis. While Tour cards are not at stake this week, there are $100 million reasons (the increased size of the FedEx Cup bonus pool this year) for players to want to get into the Tour postseason.

Last year at the Wyndham Championship, we saw Justin Thomas, on the heels of his worst season as a PGA Tour member, come up inches short of a playoff bid. It was a dramatic end to Thomas’ season, and a reminder of golf’s fundamental truth: Nothing is guaranteed, even for golf’s most famous players.

This year, Thomas’ good pal Jordan Spieth is in Greensboro trying to improve on his standing. At No. 63 in the FedEx Cup standings, Spieth is a mathematical lock for the playoffs, but not close to the position he pictured for himself at the beginning of the year. And with the bottom 20 players getting dropped from the playoffs after the St. Jude (a group that presently includes Spieth), he would do well to post a handful of low scores at the Wyndham, sending his ranking rising along with it.

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“Whether it’s the Playoffs or people making moves for eligibility, there’s a lot at stake at this event,” Spieth said Tuesday. “My goal this week is to try to move up as far as I can in the FedExCup and head into the Playoffs on a high note.”

He recalled Thomas’ situation last year. The end of the PGA Tour season brings drama in different ways, he said.

“I think it points to what this event’s capable of producing towards the end,” he said. “There’s going to be a tournament to win and that will be a focus, but you almost get to have double the excitement on some of the things, guys making the playoffs, guys kind of getting in the Top-125 or making a big push to where they can get their jobs back through the rest of the fall.”

With that pressure in mind, here are some of the Tour players competing for their 2024 Playoff lives this week.

2024 FedEx Cup playoffs bubble

Near the bubble, but locked into FedEx St. Jude Championship

No. 60 Peter Malnati, No. 61 Ben Griffin, No. 62 Min Woo Lee, No. 63 Jordan Spieth.

On the bubble

No. 66 Nick Dunlap: Dunlap is a two-time PGA Tour winner this season, but if certain moves don’t go his way, he could still fall out of the Playoffs altogether. That’s because the star rookie’s first win, in which he became the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour in more than 30 years, didn’t award him any FedEx Cup points. Dunlap’s second win in Tahoe last month (and first as a professional) dug him out of no-man’s land for the playoffs. With a five-player buffer between Dunlap and 71st place, he should be safely into Memphis.

No. 67 Jhonattan Vegas: Vegas broke a seven-year winless drought last month at the 3M Open and put himself in a prime position to make the playoffs after a one-year absence.

No. 70 Brendon Todd: Todd is this week’s bubble boy after a fairly unspectacular season highlighted by a top-10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational (one of two such finishes all year). Rather than climbing his way up the FedEx Cup rankings with wins, Todd has scrapped his way into contention the hard way, missing just four cuts all season long. He’ll likely need to do better than simply making the weekend at the Wyndham to secure his spot in Memphis.

No. 71 Victor Perez: Last week’s Olympic home-country darling finds himself as the first man out of the Playoffs entering this week. His Sunday 63 and dramatic T4 finish at the Paris Olympics didn’t count for FedEx Cup points, but it does count for vibes. Perez has been trending in the right direction, with the Olympics being his second top-10 in three starts. Another top-10 should send him onto the postseason in his first year as a PGA Tour member.

No. 72 Davis Riley: Riley got his first individual PGA Tour win this season at the John Deere Classic, but that’s not enough to guarantee a Playoff spot. The Deere was Riley’s only top-10 this season after he made the Playoffs in his first two years on Tour.

No. 74 Kurt Kitayama: After winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2023 and playing in all of the Signature Events in 2024, Kitayama hasn’t had the same form this year and will need a solid week in Greensboro if he wants to earn invites into all of the 2025 Signature Events.

On the outside looking in

No. 76 Lucas Glover: If we’re basing these rankings off of last year, Glover is in a great position. The 2009 U.S. Open winner was 112th in the standings when he won the Wyndham last year, catapulting him into the Playoffs where he won again the next week. In 2024, the 44-year-old Glover hasn’t recorded a top-10 this season and has missed four of his last six cuts coming into the week.

No. 79 Keith Mitchell: One of the best drivers on the PGA Tour, Mitchell has had a Jekyll and Hyde 2024 season. He’s had three top-10s and six other top-25s, but he has six missed cuts, including in four of his last seven starts. The 32-year-old has never missed the Playoffs as a PGA Tour member.

No. 80 Nicolai Hojgaard: Hojgaard has performed well on the International stage the last couple of years, including finishing 7th at the Olympics. He also briefly took the lead at the Masters before finishing T16. But since his solo second at the Farmers Insurance Open, his first start as a PGA Tour member, he hasn’t recorded another top-10.

No. 86 Charley Hoffman: Hoffman turned back the clock with his playoff loss to Nick Taylor at the WM Phoenix Open, but he finished 50th the next week and promptly missed three cuts in a row. Whether he makes the playoffs or not, it’s his best position in the FedEx Cup since 2021.

Longshots

No. 104 Rickie Fowler: Fowler had a bizarre follow-up to his resurgent 2023, landing no top-10s and just two top-25s in 2024. He declined to enter the Wyndham Championship, meaning his regular season is over.

No. 113 Matt Kuchar: Kuchar is the only player to play in all 17 editions of the FedEx Cup playoffs, but that streak is in serious jeopardy this week. He needs a win in order to make the top 70.

No. 117 Joel Dahmen: Like Kuchar, Dahmen also needs a win to qualify for the Playoffs, but he’s missed his last three cuts coming into the week.