How Rickie Fowler became the last man in the FedEx Cup Playoffs
Rickie Fowler lives to fight another day in the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.
Getty Images
Despite missing the cut at the PGA Tour’s regular season-ending event, Rickie Fowler will play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Fowler entered the Wyndham Championship at 133rd in the FedEx Cup standings with 323.797 points, but because of the 10 players in the top 125 who have defected to LIV Golf and thus ruled ineligible for the playoffs, the PGA Tour bumped Fowler up to 123 to start the week.
With a missed cut in Greensboro, Fowler has a lot of players to thank for the start this week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
10 surprising players who lost their PGA Tour cards on Sunday
Firstly, on Saturday morning when Austin Smotherman doubled his final hole of the second round to move the cutline, he bumped himself down outside of the top 125. Fowler was still projected 126th as of Saturday night.
Brian Stuard shot a final-round 71 on Sunday, dropping him from a tie for 7th and the projected 120th spot in the FedEx Cup, to a tie for 27th, and outside the top-125 altogether. Justin Lower also three-putted the 18th hole at Sedgefield on Sunday, knocking him out of the top 125 as well.
That would have been good enough to move Fowler into spot 124, with Matt Wallace being the last man in at 125, but Joohyung Kim won with conditional Tour status on Sunday, earning him full status just in time for a spot into the playoffs. That put Fowler as the bubble man, No. 125 and heading to Memphis.
Fowler was exempt through next season thanks to his status as a tournament winner (breaking down as his five-year exemption from winning the Players Championship in 2015, plus another two years from his win at the 2019 Waste Management Phoenix Open and an extra year from PGA Tour’s extension of status from the pandemic in 2020), but he was in jeopardy of missing out on the FedEx Cup Playoffs for the second year in a row.
Latest In News
