Gary Woodland, Patrick Cantlay and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre played their way into the top 30 of the FedEx Cup standings on Sunday and qualified at the last minute for the season-ending Tour Championship.
That means three players who began the week inside that top 30 fell on the wrong side of the bubble: Rickie Fowler, Bud Cauley and Kurt Kitayama.
Scottie Scheffler will enter the Tour Championship at No. 1 in the points standings for the fifth year in a row. He has one FedEx Cup title to show for it (2024), and as of last year, the No. 1 player does not show up to East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta with any starting benefit as the PGA Tour did away with the “starting strokes” format.
All 30 players in Atlanta will have an equal chance of winning the season-long title when they tee off Thursday. Englishman Tommy Fleetwood is the defending champion.
Woodland arrived at the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis in 31st place, not needing much help to push his way into the top 30 with a good showing. Woodland left no doubt by opening with rounds of 64 and 65 and contending for the tournament title, eventually tying for fourth, five shots behind champion Wyndham Clark.
The result: A leap from No. 31 to No. 18.
“I’m going to say it’s impressive from where I’ve been, for sure,” said Woodland, not far removed from brain surgery to remove a lesion in 2023. “There’s definitely weeks out here where I didn’t even think I would be here this week. To get to next week, I haven’t done it in six years, with everything I battled this year, I’m super proud of myself, I can tell you that.”
Cantlay (from No. 43 to No. 19) came even closer than Woodland to winning the BMW outright, his four rounds in the 60s leaving him the runner-up to Clark. The 2021 FedEx Cup champion has not won a tournament in four years.
“It’s great. Next week’s a golf course that I think suits me really well. So I’m really happy to be going back,” Cantlay said.
MacIntyre needed a strong week after he withdrew early in the first leg of the playoffs, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He was 36th coming into the week and wound up 25th in points courtesy of a T7 finish in St. Louis.
“It’s good to extend the season on the PGA Tour an extra week,” said MacIntyre, who then revealed he is playing through a Baker’s cyst on the back of his right knee.
“(On Thursday) it was like someone was stabbing me in the bottom of the hamstring,” MacIntyre said. “So the boys in the (medical) truck there have done a great job this week getting me feeling like I can play. So, yeah, can’t thank them enough.”
Fowler has not qualified for East Lake since 2023 and missed out once again. He entered the week in the danger zone at No. 30, and he finished the tournament a mere 1-under par to tie for 37th and allow three players to pass him by.
The others who dropped out were Cauley, from No. 29 to 34, and Kitayama, from No. 28 to 31, the first man out. Other notable names to miss out included South Korea’s Sungjae Im (No. 37), Englishman and PGA champion Aaron Rai (No. 39) and Justin Thomas (No. 43).
The Tour Championship begins Thursday with a $10 million prize for the player crowned FedEx Cup champion. The field of 30 can be found below:
1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Matt Fitzpatrick
3. Wyndham Clark
4. Cameron Young
5. Si Woo Kim
6. Chris Gotterup
7. Collin Morikawa
8. Sam Burns
9. Tommy Fleetwood
10. Ludvig Aberg
11. Rory McIlroy
12. Xander Schauffele
13. Jacob Bridgeman
14. Russell Henley
15. Akshay Bhatia
16. Hideki Matsuyama
17. Ryan Gerard
18. Gary Woodland
19. Patrick Cantlay
20. Kristoffer Reitan
21. Min Woo Lee
22. J.J. Spaun
23. Alex Smalley
24. Alex Fitzpatrick
25. Robert MacIntyre
26. Viktor Hovland
27. Justin Rose
28. Adam Scott
29. Tom Kim
30. Ryan Fox