With the 2025 PGA Tour regular season officially in the books, the page has turned to the FedEx Cup Playoffs. While this postseason may have similarities to those in recent memory, the 2025 FedEx Cup Playoffs are being the first contested under a new format once the Tour Championship begins in two weeks.
What was once a 70-man field has been whittled down to 30 ahead of the Tour Championship. Notable names no longer in competition during these playoffs include Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark, just to name a few.
There is one more massive payday ahead at the Tour Championship in Atlanta given the FedEx Cup bonus pool came in at $100 million. Justin Rose took home $3.6 million of the first $20 million that was handed out at the St. Jude Championship, leaving $80 million to be awarded at the BMW Championship and Tour Championship over the ensuing two weeks. Scottie Scheffler claimed the next $3.6 million winner’s share by claiming the BMW along with a $5 million bonus for finishing atop the FedEx Cup standings entering the season finale. A $10 million winner’s share remains on the line at East Lake Golf Club next week.
Just qualifying to East Lake remains a feature in a successful season, but advancing to the BMW Championship was key to unlocking one’s full playing schedule for the following year. All those who played themselves into the second round of the playoffs became eligible to play in all eight signature events during the 2026 PGA Tour season and more or less be able to pick and choose their playing schedules.
2025 FedEx Cup Playoffs schedule
|
FedEx St. Jude Championship |
Justin Rose |
Memphis, Tenn. |
TPC Southwind |
70 |
|
BMW Championship |
Scottie Scheffler |
Owings Mills, Md. |
Caves Valley |
50 |
|
Tour Championship |
Aug. 21-24 |
Atlanta, Ga. |
East Lake Golf Club |
30 |
All three events are 72-hole, stroke-play tournaments, though the fields gradually get smaller as the playoffs roll on. The points change, too; everything is quadrupled. During regular-season events, most winners receive 500 FedEx Cup points for finishing first at tournaments (in a handful of events, 600 points go to first place). The winners of the first two FedEx Cup Playoffs events will instead receive 2,000 points each. The point boost goes for every slot on the leaderboard: 300 for second becomes 1,200 and so on.
Only eight golfers surpassed the 2,000-point total during the entire regular season: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Sepp Straka, Russell Henley, Justin Thomas, Ben Griffin, Harris English and J.J. Spaun. Scheffler entered the playoffs with a 2,200-point lead on third-place Straka, while McIlroy trailed him by just under 1,400 points. Those totals, of course, have changed since the conclusion of play at the St. Jude Championship.
The top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings after the St. Jude Championship move on to the BMW Championship. Then the top 30 after that move on to the Tour Championship.
2025 FedEx Cup standings
Despite missing the entire month of January due to injury, Scheffler entered the FedEx Cup Playoffs as the clear-cut No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings. McIlroy skipped the St. Jude Championship entirely given he does not play well at TPC Southwind, wanted to take a break and realized it was impossible for him to fall outside the top 30 this month. The duo had created a solid moat around themselves, and given the changing Tour Championship landscape, only money was on the line for them across the first two legs of this three-week playoffs.
The same was the case for most of the top 10, but everything tightened the lower one looked down the standings.
Let’s take a closer at the final top 30 — those who get to compete in the Tour Championship — now that the St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship are in the books.
|
1 |
Scottie Scheffler (7,456) |
16 (-2) |
Keegan Bradley (1,993) |
|
2 |
Rory McIlroy (3,687) |
17 (+7) |
Sam Burns (1,871) |
|
3 |
J.J. Spaun (3,493) |
18 |
Brian Harman (1,735) |
|
4 |
Justin Rose (3,326) |
19 (-3) |
Corey Conners (1,719) |
|
5 (+3) |
Tommy Fleetwood (2,923) |
20 (-1) |
Patrick Cantlay (1,661) |
|
6 (+1) |
Ben Griffin (2,798) |
21 (-4) |
Collin Morikawa (1,656) |
|
7 (-1) |
Russell Henley (2,795) |
22 (+6) |
Viktor Hovland (1,637) |
|
8 (-3) |
Sepp Straka (2,783) |
23 (-2) |
Hideki Matsuyama (1,630) |
|
9 (+11) |
Robert MacIntyre (2,750) |
24 (-1) |
Shane Lowry (1,607) |
| 10 (+5) | Maverick McNealy (2,547) | 25 (-3) | Nick Taylor (1,564) |
|
11 (-1) |
Harris English (2,512) |
26 (+19) |
Harry Hall (1,475) |
| 12 (-3) | Justin Thomas (2,477) | 27 | Jacob Bridgeman (1,475) |
| 13 (-1) | Cameron Young (2,185) | 28 (-3) | Sungjae Im (1,422) |
| 14 (-1) | Ludvig Åberg (2,179) | 29 (-3) | Chris Gotterup (1,414) |
| 15 (-4) | Andrew Novak (2,030) | 30 (-1) | Akshay Bhatia (1,409) |
Hall was the lone golfer to play his way into the Tour Championship, moving up 19 spots on the back of a sixth-place finish at the BMW Championship that earned him $750,000. His ascension came at the detriment of Lucas Glover, who entered Caves Valley in the 30th spot only to shoot 10 over for the week and plummet six spots to 36th in the FedEx Cup standings.
2025 Tour Championship format
Say goodbye to the staggered start format. The PGA Tour announced in May that it would be doing away with the handicapped iteration of the Tour Championship, which had been the playing format beginning in 2019. In this format, the player who was ranked No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings started the week at 10 under and with a two-stroke lead over his nearest competitor and so forth down the leaderboard.
This year, the PGA Tour is allowing every player who qualifies for the Tour Championship to begin at ground zero. All 30 players start the tournament at even par and all 30 players will have the same opportunity to lay their claim to the season-long crown. In essence, the Tour Championship is a normal tournament with abnormal stakes.
The format does take away a little bit of the excitement from the first two postseason events as finishing No. 11 means the same as finish No. 25 without starting strokes, but it is made up for with the level playing field at East Lake.
2025 FedEx Cup Playoffs purse, prize money
2025 St. Jude Championship purse, prize money
- 1st: $3.6 million
- 2nd: $2.2 million
- 3rd: $1.4 million
- 4th: $960,000
- 5th: $800,000
- 6th: $720,000
- 7th: $670,000
- 8th: $620,000
- 9th: $580,000
- 10th: $540,000
2025 BMW Championship purse, prize money
- 1st: $3.6 million
- 2nd: $2.2 million
- 3rd: $1.4 million
- 4th: $990,000
- 5th: $830,000
- 6th: $750,000
- 7th: $695,000
- 8th: $640,000
- 9th: $600,000
- 10th: $560,000
2025 Tour Championship purse, prize money
The figures are startling, but not quite as startling for the finale as they have been in previous years given the change in the playing format and the payout structure of the FedEx Cup bonus pool. Here’s a look at what the lucrative top 10 will look like at the Tour Championship.
- 1st: $10 million
- 2nd: $5 million
- 3rd: $3.705 million
- 4th: $3.2 million
- 5th: $2.75 million
- 6th: $1.9 million
- 7th: $1.4 million
- 8th: $1.065 million
- 9th: $900,000
- 10th $735,000
Last year, Scheffler won the FedEx Cup over Collin Morikawa and took home the $25 million grand prize. The $10 million represents a $15 million decrease from a season ago, but the bonus payouts throughout the postseason make up for it as the player ranked first in the FedEx Cup standings following the Wyndham Championship ($10 million) and BMW Championship ($5 million) receives the difference in that figure.