Big names have season on the line at the BMW Championship

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jordan Spieth are part of a group that needs to do well at the BMW Championship this week to qualify for the Tour Championship

Sixty-nine of the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings will tee off at the BMW Championship this week, but for 39 unfortunate ones, it will mark the end of their PGA Tour season.

Only the top 30 at the end of this week at Medinah will qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship next week and remain eligible to win the FedEx Cup and the $15 million top prize. Brooks Koepka leads the standings, with Northern Trust champion Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy rounding out the top three.

They don’t have to worry about playing at East Lake next week. But for those currently outside the top-30, only a strong showing at Medinah will extend their season.

That group includes the biggest name in the sport. Tiger Woods had to pull out of the Northern Trust last Friday with an oblique injury, raising doubts about whether he would even be able to play the BMW Championship. At 38th in the standings, Woods would then miss the Tour Championship after winning there a year ago.

Woods, though, arrived at Medinah on Tuesday and admits he’s feeling better and ready to give it a go for the next four days. “Way better. It was nice to take those days off and I had to just let it calm down,” he said after Wednesday’s pro-am round. “It feels so much better…definitely doesn’t feel like it did on Friday, that’s for sure.”

Woods needs to finish in at least 11th place at Medinah this week to extend his season one more event. He has good memories of Medinah, where he won the 1999 and 2006 PGA Championships and played in the Ryder Cup in 2012.

For the likes of Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and Jason Day, their situation is even more dire. Mickelson, 49, has missed the cut in five of his last nine events. He has no top-10 finishes since winning the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. The biggest reason for his drop in form is his driver, where he ranks 193rd out of 195 players on tour in driving accuracy this year. Mickelson comes to the BMW Championship 46th in the FedEx Cup standings and needs at least a sixth-place finish to avoid missing the Tour Championship for the fourth time in the last six seasons.

Spieth was once considered a lock to make it to East Lake. He qualified for the FedEx Cup finale the first five years of his career, taking home the trophy in 2015. But Spieth is still without a win since the Open Championship in 2017 and missed out on East Lake a year ago. He’s recently shown some signs of regaining his form, finishing inside the top-20 in six of his last nine events, including four top-10s. He was in danger of not even making it to Medinah last week after a third-round 74 at Liberty National. A Sunday round of 67 got him up to sixth place in the tournament and 44th in the standings. He needs a ninth place showing to play another week.

Day has the second-longest active streak of qualifying for the Tour Championship. He’s made it to East Lake every year since 2013, behind only Dustin Johnson. But the Aussie, who recently split from caddie Steve Williams, has only one top-10 in 10 starts since the Masters. He has the most work to do at Medinah this week; he needs to finish no worse than fifth.

A change to the Tour Championship format taking effect this year means winning the cup will still be a longshot even if they get there. Players will start with staggered scores, with the leader at 10-under, second place at eight-under, third at seven-under, all the way down to 26th-30th place who will start at even-par.

That’s next week’s problem, though. For the players currently on the outside looking in, just getting to East Lake is the goal this week at Medinah.