Wyndham Championship is FedEx Cup 'last-chance saloon' for Adam Scott, Max Homa, others

USA Today

5 days ago

Two years ago at the Wyndham Championship, Ben Griffin missed the cut and had to sweat out the weekend to find out whether he was going to hang on to one of the final 70 spots to qualify for the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, the first of three legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs, which begins next week.
'I just remember there being a lot of uncertainty,' Griffin said. 'I remember there being three different flights booked on Sunday night not really sure where I was going to go, if my season was done, if I was flying home, if I was going on a vacation, if I was going to Memphis.'
So, he sat glued to the TV on his couch with his parents and now-fiancée, as Justin Thomas attempted to hole out from off the green at the 18th hole of the final round. If Thomas pulled off the one-in-a-million shot, Griffin would be bounced from the playoffs. Thomas's try hit the flagstick but refused to drop. Griffin had survived a scare.
'Heartrate was super-high just watching it,' he said during his pre-tournament press conference.
He won't have to worry about high anxiety this week at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the final regular season event of the season-long points race. Griffin has won twice this season and enters the week at No. 7 in the FedEx Cup.
'I've got my flight booked to Memphis and I'll be just fine,' he said on Wednesday.
But for most of the field of 156 this week at the Wyndham, there likely will be some tossing and turning at night.
'You can't get it out of your mind. If you have, then you're a god. I mean, props to you for your mental edge,' Griffin said.
Since the inception of the FedEx Cup in 2007, the Wyndham Championship has played host to the FedEx Cup regular season finale. The top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings will advance to the FedEx St. Jude Championship; every player ranked from Nos. 60-109 in the FedEx Cup standings are in the field this week.
The late golf writer John Feinstein dubbed the Wyndham Championship 'the last chance saloon,' and several notable players are feeling the heat at crunch time. (There still are seven FedEx Cup Fall events after the playoffs where players who are too far behind to make the top 70 can earn points to qualify for the top 100 and retain full-exempt status for next season. That number has been reduced from 125 in previous seasons.)
Matti Schmid is the bubble boy at No. 70 and will try to stay on the right side of the cut off. Gary Woodland, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, enters the week at No. 75 and needs at least a solo 27th-place finish this week to get into the top 70.
A missed cut at the 3M Open last week dropped Tom Kim down to 89th in the FedEx Cup standings. Kim, who won this event in 2022, needs at least a solo third place finish this week to qualify for the playoffs.
With his wife expecting their second child next week, Max Homa didn't want to be in this predicament, but his wife gave her blessing for him to play and he needs at least a two-way tie for second this week to get into the top 70. He could need a win depending on what other players ahead of him do.
Adam Scott is No. 85 in the FedEx Cup standings and needs a two-way T-3 finish or better to move inside the top 70. He is exempt on Tour thru 2026, but he knows his back is against the wall and he's not ready for his season to end.
'It's do or die,' he said on Wednesday. 'That's a fun way to play. Sometimes we or I have fallen in the trap of like, 'There's always next week if it doesn't work out,' and that's not the case here, so I think that's not a pressure but more motivation.'
Scott is encouraged that he can still make it to Memphis with a strong finish at a course where he lost a playoff in 2021 after missing a 4-foot putt for the win. It's one of two putts — along with a putt to force a playoff with Ernie Els at the 2012 British Open — that Scott wishes he could have had a mulligan.
'It does sting,' he said. 'It hurt then but it kind of almost hurts more now because I haven't won since then either.'
It's been a rather pedestrian season by Scott's high standards. Yet, his confidence remains high despite failing to earn a top-10 finish all season that this could be the week that the pieces to the puzzle all fit.
'I feel like I've been playing well since May and really not gotten much out of this at all. It would be fun to be in the mix this weekend, and also I still have some open wounds from a few years ago in that playoff so it would be fun to change that,' he said.
Some notables such as Jordan Spieth (No. 50), Tony Finau (No. 60) and Rickie Fowler (No. 61) are trying to improve their position heading into the playoffs with hopes of bettering their chances to advance to the second leg of the playoffs when the field is trimmed to 50 players.
'It's a big reason why I'm here,' said Spieth, who missed several weeks due to an injury and the birth of his third child. 'When I sat out, I moved from 38th all the way down to 48th essentially just by not playing. So it would be nice to have a huge boost this week and not have to worry about it next week, but I'm fully prepared to have some stress next week on that 50 number, and ideally a good start this week or next week really takes a lot of that off.'
Even Griffin and Keegan Bradley, No. 10 in the FedEx Cup, have their own tournament within a tournament — the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 will share a $40 million bonus, and both are looking to solidify their position in the top 10, while three players in the field can play their way into a nice payday: Hideki Matsuyama at No. 23 needs a win; Robert MacIntyre at No. 15 needs a solo 2nd or better; and Andrew Novak at No. 12 needs a five-way T-3 or better.
Plus, many of the players who already punched their tickets for the first playoff event are trying to make a good impression for making the Ryder Cup.
It's another reason why the tournament boasts its strongest field in the FedEx Cup era, with 21 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking and 22 of the top 50 in the current FedEx Cup standings. Hoisting the trophy on Sunday still remains first and foremost on everyone's mind but at the Wyndham Championship the climax of the regular season brings all sorts of high stakes and high-pressure situations.
'For the guys this week that are on the bubble,' Griffin said, 'you've just got to have the most focus ever and just try to lock in and try not to get distracted by the external things.'