FedEx St. Jude Championship
Agony (Tom Kim) and ecstasy (Eric Cole), among losers and winners in battle to advance in FedEx Cup Playoffs
Icon Sportswire
MEMPHIS — “I think it's a cool thing what this FedEx Cup kind of provides,” Eric Cole was saying Sunday after completing his final round in the opening PGA Tour playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. “There's drama. You don't really know where you're going to be. It's going to be kind of fun to sit back in the AC and watch them come down the final stretch.”
Easy to say if you’re Eric Cole and not Tom Kim, but the point is still valid. The first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs provided drama top to bottom on Sunday, with Hideki Matsuyama surviving a major hiccup to win by two strokes over Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland. Meanwhile, in the battle for a coveted position among the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings and a berth in the BMW Championship—which awards exemptions into all of the 2025 signature events on the PGA Tour—the jostling looked like a litter of fidgety kittens in a shoe box.
No wiggle room.
Not even for Nick Dunlap, who began the day in second place and with an outside chance to win the tournament but needed a two-putt par at the last to sneak inside the magic number. The rookie’s T-5 finish at 13-under 267 after a closing one-under 69 was enough for a boost of 19 spots to finish the week 48th on the FedEx Cup points list.
Cole shared low round of the day with Schauffele and Max Greyserman, each shooting 63, but the nod for the most uplifting story belonged to Greyserman. A rookie from New Jersey, the 29-year-old looked like a sure winner the week before at the Wyndham Championship but frittered away a four-shot lead over the final five holes with a double bogey and quadruple bogey. This time he came up clutch.
“My goal was to shoot 63 or 64, and see where that got me,” Greyserman said as he was departing TPC Southwind, a tour camera crew in tow every step of the way. “I wasn’t going to let up until the last shot. That was the mistake I made last week, and I didn’t want to do that again.”
Greyserman arrived at the Home of the Blues in 47th place in the points standings but was on the outside looking in after 54 holes. However, his bogey-free final round enabled him to climb back into 48th place and earn a trip to the second leg of the playoffs at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colo. A four-under 276 total was good for T-33.
Cole also was bogey free until giving back a shot at the par-4 home hole. But it was a smart bogey. After hitting into the water left of the fairway, he laid up with his third shot to 86 yards. Then he got it up and down, sinking a 15-footer that likely enabled him to advance in 47th position. It did ruin his travel plans, however.
“I had no flight until I played so poorly yesterday [Saturday]; I booked a flight home,” said the Florida resident, who finished T-18 with a seven-under 273 total. “I've got a flight at 2 [Monday], but I don't think I'm going to get on that one.”
Kim was flying along until a dreaded 6-6-6 finish. It came out of nowhere. The 22-year-old Korean native had a clean card until he three-putted for bogey at the par-5 16th. Then he three-putted again to double 17. When he drove into the water at 18 and missed a 10-footer for bogey, he found himself falling from 43rd to 51st in the points standings.
“This season has just been … it's just been like this,” Kim lamented. “I've played really good golf, and then had some tough finishes. I feel like 2024 has really kicked me in the butt. But I've gotten so much better. I've fought really hard just to get myself into this situation. I was 90-something before we went on this run, and it looks like I'm going to miss by one. But it is what it is.
“I told myself before the day that if I didn't play well, I really felt like I was going to finish 51,” added Kim, whose final-round 71 and 279 total placed him T-50 in the event. “I kind of told myself, if that happens, I've done everything I could to be inside that top 50 and hopefully give myself a chance at Tour Championship. But I couldn't, and I'm going to look forward to a really good off-season because I'm pretty tired.”
Kim’s late meltdown was a godsend to Keegan Bradley, who appeared to be toast after a final-round 68. Playing in the day’s fifth group, Bradley, the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, had fallen from 39th to 52nd in the points race and needed help. Hopes were fading with Cole and Greyserman putting up their 63s and Australia’s Cam Davis doing just enough despite a double bogey at the last to stay inside the cutoff. Maverick McNealy threatened only to come up literally one shot short after a 64.
Then Kim delivered the reprieve. Bradley edged out Kim by slightly more than nine points for the final berth in Colorado. His one-over 281 aggregate score delivered the most pleasing T-59 finish anyone could ever have. He was in at No. 50.
On the other end of things, two players who had worked themselves into position suffered horrible final rounds—and they did it together. The pairing of Harris English and Nick Taylor saw their bubbles burst with rounds of 76 and 77, respectively. Both had started the week just outside the top 50, but began the final round projected for the last two spots. Battling a back injury, Harris ended up T-61 with a 282 total. Taylor, meanwhile, also was hoping to advance to improve his chances of being picked by fellow Canadian Mike Weir, captain of the International team, for next month’s Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal. But he finished at 283.
Similarly, Mackenzie Hughes, who came in 48th, got bumped for the second year in a row after falling from 48th to 54th in the points standings after he ended up 58th in the 70-man field with a level-par 280 total. Three Canadian players are still alive in Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith, who is ranked the highest among them in the points race at 26th.
Jake Knapp was the man squarely on the bubble at No. 50 coming in and left in 59th position by finishing 67th for the tournament at 286.
HERE IS THE COMPLETE LIST OF THE TOP 50
(Previous ranking in parenthesis)
1: Scottie Scheffler (1)
2: Xander Schauffele (2)
3: Hideki Matsuyama (8)
4: Collin Morikawa (4)
5: Rory McIlroy (3)
6: Wyndham Clark (5)
7: Ludvig Aberg (6)
8: Sahith Theegala (7)
9: Patrick Cantlay (11)
10: Sungjae Im (9)
11: Shane Lowry (10)
12: Robert MacIntyre (17)
13: Akshay Bhatia (15)
14: Tony Finau (14)
15: Byeong Hun An (12)
16: Viktor Hovland (57)
17: Russell Henley (13)
18: Sam Burns (29)
19: Billy Horschel (23)
20: Matthieu Pavon (16)
21: Aaron Rai (25)
22: Justin Thomas (19)
23: Chrisiaan Bezuidenhout (22)
24: Sepp Straka (18)
25: Jason Day (26)
26: Davis Thompson (24)
27: Taylor Pendrith (27)
28: Tom Hoge (21)
29: Brian Harman (20)
30: Denny McCarthy (45)
31: Tommy Fleetwood (32)
32: Chris Kirk (28)
33: Corey Conners (30)
34: J.T. Poston (36)
35: Stephan Jaeger (33)
36: Matt Fitzpatrick (40)
37: Will Zalatoris (49)
38: Austin Eckroat (41)
39: Cameron Young (31)
40: Thomas Detry (34)
41: Adam Scott (46)
42: Adam Hadwin (37)
43: Max Homa (35)
44: Si Woo Kim (38)
45: Alex Noren (42)
46: Eric Cole (54)
47: Max Greyserman (47)
48: Nick Dunlap (57)
49: Cam Davis (44)
50: Keegan Brdley (39)