The most important cut of the 2024 PGA Tour season happened on a Sunday.
Really.
I know you, dear reader, which means I know you don’t care very much about the typical, run-of-the-mill, 70-down-to-50 FedEx Cup Playoff cutline. But you ought to care about this typical, run-of-the-mill, 70-down-to-50 cutline, because the implications of it are many, many millions of dollars.
Yes, this week’s cutline determined the official Top 50 of the 2024 FedEx Cup standings, which means it determined the 50 golfers who will be granted automatic entrance into each of the PGA Tour’s eight Signature Events in 2025. Those who missed the cut won’t be totally left in the lurch, but their professional lives will change. Now their schedule will be dependent upon sponsors exemptions; their placement in things like the Swing Five, the Next Ten and the OWGR; and their number of seasonlong victories (players with a win are granted an exemption into the rest of the year’s events).
So, who’s on the winning side? Who’s on the losing side? And what does it all mean for you, the golf fan sincerely hoping to see the greatest number of must-watch golf tournaments in 2025? We break it all down below.
Who’s In
The complete list
- Scottie Scheffler
- Xander Schauffele
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Collin Morikawa
- Rory McIlroy
- Wyndham Clark
- Ludvig Åberg
- Sahith Theegala
- Patrick Cantlay
- Sungjae Im
- Shane Lowry
- Robert MacIntyre
- Akshay Bhatia
- Tony Finau
- Byeong Hun An
- Viktor Hovland
- Russell Henley
- Sam Burns
- Billy Horschel
- Matthieu Pavon
- Aaron Rai
- Justin Thomas
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout
- Sepp Straka
- Jason Day
- Davis Thompson
- Taylor Pendrith
- Tom Hoge
- Brian Harman
- Denny McCarthy
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Chris Kirk
- Corey Conners
- J.T. Poston
- Stephan Jaeger
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- Will Zalatoris
- Austin Eckroat
- Cameron Young
- Thomas Detry
- Adam Scott
- Adam Hadwin
- Max Homa
- Si Woo Kim
- Alex Noren
- Eric Cole
- Max Greyserman
- Nick Dunlap
- Cam Davis
- Keegan Bradley
The Stars
Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas — these are the names you never want to see fall out of the Signature Events, because without names like these, the Siggies would be … well, not very signature.
Thankfully, the system has ensured that all but a few superstars have found their way into automatic qualification status for 2024. If the first goal of the new system was to multiply the number of times the stars competed against one another, then, well, mission accomplished.
The Next Gen
You wouldn’t make a list of the stars you’d most want to watch today without names like Ludvig Aberg, Viktor Hovland and Sahith Theegala. Thankfully, each of those members of pro golf’s Next Gen stars made it safely into the top 50.
Special Kudos to Nick Dunlap, who made it into the top 50 despite having points from his first career victory at the American Express not count towards his FedEx Cup status for this year. Dunlap was an amateur when he won that event, but he scraped his way into the top 50 after a late-season surge that featured a second career victory at the Barracuda. Dunlap isn’t just a name to watch; he’s a name on the rise.
The Captain
We can admit now that it would’ve been awkward if Keegan Bradley had missed out on the top 50. As U.S. Ryder Cup captain, a flood of sponsor’s exemptions was sure to come his way in the biggest events of ’25, setting off a secondary round of critiques about the ethicality of sponsor handouts.
Thankfully, Bradley made it in on the number, grabbing the coveted slot No. 50. He’ll have a front-row seat from each of the Siggies in ’25 as he gameplans the American roster in Bethpage, leaving at least several more openings for Webb Simpson.
The Wounded Warriors
Max Homa most certainly didn’t think he’d be battling for FedEx Cup relevance on the evening he finished T3 at the Masters in April. The arrow on his game was pointing directly up, and even though he’d lost to Scheffler at Augusta, he didn’t seem all that upset about it.
Three months later, he stood soberly at the lectern at the Open Championship as he discussed the “battle within” that had threatened to swallow his golf game whole over the summer. He might not be thrilled with 43rd place in the FedEx Cup standings, but Homa will live to fight another day with full Signature Event eligibility.
He’ll be playing in those events alongside Will Zalatoris, who charged into 36th place with a strong finish to his season. Back injuries are notoriously tricky terrain for golfers, and Zalatoris’ was unusually tricky even given that standard. His game never quite returned to its 2022 form, but after staring down his own golfing mortality last year, we’re betting he’ll take another year of pro golf relevancy gladly (for now).
The Turnovers
The 50 auto-qualifiers for the Signature Events in 2025 aren’t wholly different from 2024, but they’re different enough. A glut of new additions, like Max Greyserman, Stephen Jaeger and Aaron Rai dot the list. That should be a sigh of relief for the PGA Tour’s working class: the ivory tower Siggies aren’t all that impossible to reach.
Who’s out
Jordan Spieth
Wait, seriously?
Yes, seriously. Spieth crash-landed to a 66th-place finish in the FedEx Cup standings in ’24 on Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He doubled down on the severity of that news by announcing his decision to undergo surgery “ASAP” for a long-standing wrist condition, which will likely keep him out of competitive golf until the beginning of 2025.
With his standing, Spieth’s attendance at the PGA Tour’s biggest events will not be assured for the first time in his pro golf life. Thankfully, he’s very likely to receive all manner of sponsor exemptions in ’25, so it may not matter much if he isn’t in the FedEx Top 50. Still, Sunday’s news was a surprise for the guy who lassoed the golf world in the mid-2010s. It was also a reminder of how long ago that now feels.
Tom Kim
There was no more painful top-50 miss on Sunday than that of Tom Kim, who stumbled down the stretch at the FedEx St. Jude Championship to finish T50 in the tournament, and in the ever-unenviable spot of 51st in the FedEx Cup standings.
Kim is another easily marketable sponsor exemption candidate, and his game has already secured him a handful of Tour wins, but Sunday’s finish was a uniquely painful end to a uniquely painful few weeks.
The Poors
Oh, you don’t play golf twelve times a year for a piece of $20 million? Couldn’t be the guys in the top 50.
Honey, it’s time to buy that boat!
Min Woo Lee
It seemed for a while like we were on the brink of a Min Woo Lee breakout season in ’24, but the signature victory never quite arrived. A handful of top-3 finishes will be a nice place for him to hang his hat, but a 60th-place FedEx Cup finish will leave his 2025 schedule looking slightly different.
Jake Knapp
Who knew a PGA Tour win, a T4 finish and a solo 8th-place finish in one month wasn’t enough to clinch a spot in the following year’s Siggies? Well, now Jake Knapp knows. He finished in 59th place.
The Presidents Cup
Thankfully, Signature Event eligibility isn’t a prerequisite of Presidents Cup roster standing, otherwise the Internationals would be without a pair of very valuable Canucks. Mackenzie Hughes (No. 52) and Nick Taylor (58) sit on the outside looking in on the final stretch of the postseason, and next year’s Signature Events, even though both players figure to form the core of an International Presidents Cup team hoping to make big waves in Montreal in September.
Team golf events seem to shape our perspective of which players are trending each year. While giving away FedEx Cup points would prove its own quagmire (European players cannot compete in the event, which would effectively amount to a punishment), it seems strange that the event would exist outside of the PGA Tour context.
