FedEx Cup Playoffs standings: Golfers on bubble watch with work to do at St. Jude Championship 2025

The FedEx Cup Playoffs get underway Thursday in Memphis, Tennessee, as 69 of the PGA Tour’s top 70 players will begin play at the 2025 St. Jude Championship. No. 2 in the standings, Rory McIlroy, is notably absent from the proceedings as he has decided to take a long-planned break the first week. McIlroy has no concerns about missing the Tour Championship, which no longer employs the starting strokes format, and his poor play in Memphis made St. Jude entirely skippable.

McIlroy will join the playoff party along with the rest of the top 50 outside Baltimore, Maryland, for the BMW Championship next week. He is also one of the select few who is completely secure in his position as a lock to be part of the top 30 in Atlanta at the Tour Championship in two weeks.

As play begins this week at the St. Jude Championship, plenty of players have work cut out to make the final event of the season. The first hurdle is getting inside the top 50 to make it to Caves Valley for the BMW Championship, which carries a ton of importance for 2026 as well. Those in the BMW Championship field will earn a guaranteed spot in all eight signature events next season (plus The Players Championship), meaning they’re locked in to the eight fields with guaranteed money and the biggest purses on the PGA Tour. 

With 2,000 points going to the winner in Memphis — and each player in the top 10 picking up at least 300 points — everyone in the field has a chance to play their way into Baltimore. On the flip side, those hanging around the bubble can easily get knocked out, and the tournament within the tournament will be watching as projected positions change with every birdie and bogey. 

Let’s take a page out of the March Madness book and employ our own bubble watch for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Here’s what golfers on the bubble need to do in order to lock up a top 50 spot and secure a tee time at East Lake in two weeks. 

Top 50 bubble watch (BMW Championship)

It’s extremely tight around the bubble with golfers like Min Woo Lee, Wyndham Clark, Jordan Spieth, J.T. Poston and Kurt Kitayama living and dying by every position gained and lost on the leaderboard this week. 

There’s a bit of a conundrum for them as their best chance to make it to the BMW Championship is the leaderboard remaining chalk on top. The worst-case scenario is a top 15 featuring multiple players from outside the top 50. At the same time, they could use some help to make it to the Tour Championship from those in that 20-40 range struggling at the St. Jude Championship.

The best way to alleviate stress as part of that group is to play well and get off to a strong start. If you’re in the top 10, you have nothing to worry about, but if you go into the weekend in the middle (or worse, the bottom) of the pack, there’s an awful lot of math that comes into play. 

Higher up the standings, someone like Xander Schauffele would have to finish towards the bottom of the leaderboard (or have a crazy top 10 including a group of players ranked below him) to really sweat about making it to the BMW Championship. As someone who has thrived at East Lake in the past, he has his sights set on a run to the top 30. In that battle, he’s 214 points back of Daniel Berger, needing a strong performance to make up that gap going into the second event. 

Top 30 bubble watch (Tour Championship)

While there are still two weeks to sort out who will qualify for Atlanta, play in Memphis is vital to the race for the Tour Championship. Daniel Berger has a tenuous hold on that 30th and final spot in the field in Atlanta, and on top of big names like Schauffele and Spieth chasing him from further down the top 50, he’s got plenty to worry about with Jason Day, Ryan Fox, Ryan Gerard and the rest just outside the top 30. 

A strong finish this week in Memphis can secure the positions of those currently in the 20s, while a poor showing can also ruin someone’s chances. Given how many points are available for a top-3 finish, if there are any big surprises at the top of the leaderboard this week, it can really throw a wrench in the points race to get to Atlanta. 

Guys like Viktor Hovland and Justin Rose have been solidly inside the number all season, but they cannot afford to finish towards the bottom of the leaderboard this week or risk seeing their cushion erased. Sungjae Im had a chance to really solidify his standing after a hot start at the Wyndham, but he faded late and now has to fight the next two weeks to hold on to his spot just inside the top 30. 

Just last week, Cameron Young jumped from 40th to 16th with his win at the Wyndham Championship. With four-times points available in Memphis, even more volatility is possible this week.