If you are a fan of professional golf and also bubbles, this is your season.
Last week, 70 was the magic number; the Wyndham Championship was the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, and at week’s end the top 70 in the standings made it to the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs, which begin this week in Memphis. There was a little movement on the bubble; tournament winner Michael Brennan jumped from No. 105 to No. 47, Steven Fisk fell from No. 69 to No. 71 and Jackson Koivun earned just enough points to cling to his starting spot at No. 70.
What do you get for being top 70? A fully exempt PGA Tour card for 2027, which means a guaranteed spot in all full-field events plus the Players Championship. That’s good stuff.
But now there’s another bubble, and another magic number: 50.
At this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, the Tour will cut from 70 to 50, which is a big deal for two reasons. Getting inside that number is always a massive deal, but this year there’s something extra on the line.
The first is that the top 50 players are guaranteed entry into next year’s Signature Events — their final season in existence. That’s a big deal because these are prestigious, big-money, limited-field events; if you’re a Tour pro, these are the ones you want to make sure you’re playing.
The second — a related reason — is that this 2026 postseason will have serious ramifications for 2028. That’s when the Tour is putting its new stratified, two-tier system into place, which will limit movement between the “challenger” and “championship” tour segments. The Tour hasn’t finalized qualification criteria, but they’ve made it clear you’ll want to be in the top 90 following the 2027 season. What’s the best way to get into the top 90? That’s right, folks: by starting the season inside that top 50, which means you can set your schedule, play the big-point Signature Events and accumulate accordingly. Plenty of top 50 golfers finish outside the top 50 at the end of the season, but only a handful finish outside the top 90.
So for this week’s Bubble Boys, there’s something extra on the line. Here are a handful of guys just outside it:
No. 47: Michael Brennan
There should be some in-and-out movement, but based on the points up for grabs, don’t expect more than a handful of players. No. 44 Sahith Theegala, for instance, should be a lock to make it to next week’s BMW Championship. Brennan is closer to limbo: According to DataGolf’s projections, he should feel good about his chances, too, but at 92.7 percent, he still has a little work to do to guarantee his spot.
Brennan has been in Sunday contention three weeks in a row; if he makes it four, he can finalize accommodations in St. Louis.
No. 50: Maverick McNealy
McNealy finished last season just on the outside looking in at the U.S. Ryder Cup team. I was curious how he’d play this season, whether he’d make a charge at the Presidents Cup team and whether, at age 30, he’d find a new gear.
Instead, it has been another season of good-but-not-great golf. McNealy’s consistency has been remarkable: in 19 starts this season, he has 10 top-25 finishes but no finish better than 10th. The points system rewards a few high finishes rather than a steady drumbeat of T18s, which leaves McNealy as the last man in — and hoping to stay there.
No. 52: Max Homa
Homa’s 2026 has shown flashes of very good; he was terrific in a T9 at the Masters and finished solo second at the John Deere in July. That leaves him within striking distance of the top 50, and he’ll probably need a top 20 to pass a couple of players to get there.
No. 53: Sungjae Im
Im has served as the unofficial mayor of East Lake; he’s currently on a seven-year streak of qualifying for the season-ending Tour Championship, which is particularly impressive considering he’s only played seven years on Tour. Per DataGolf, Im has just an 18 percent chance of extending his season to next week and just a 1.9 percent chance of making it back to the finale.
Due to recovery from a wrist injury, Im didn’t make his first start until March; since then, he’s played 21 of 23 weeks, highlighted by three top-10s and three top-15s in his last four starts. Time to see if he can earn the right to play three more weeks.
No. 54: Jordan Spieth
Like McNealy, Spieth has stacked up a remarkable string of top-20s-but-not-top-10s this season; eight of his last 18 starts he’s finished between T11 and T19, including at last week’s Wyndham Championship.
Spieth is currently No. 54, which is exactly where he finished his 2025 season. He finished the 2024 season at No. 66. It would feel like some small breakthrough for him, then, to throw down his first top-10 of the season this week and punch his ticket to the BMW and the 2027 Siggies — and to get an inside track to the top tour for 2028.
The Rest of the Bubble
One golfer has already been eliminated from top-50 contention; Daniel Berger is No. 60 on the points list but hasn’t played since the Open Championship. He withdrew from last week’s Wyndham Championship and already withdrew from the FedEx St. Jude, too, suggesting he’s not healthy enough to go.
DataGolf has No. 42 Patrick Cantlay as a 100-percent lock to make the next round. Here’s everyone below him on the list:
43 – Ryo Hisatsune 44 – Sahith Theegala 45 – Eric Cole 46 – Alex Noren 47 – Michael Brennan 48 – Matt McCarty 49 – Keith Mitchell 50 – Maverick McNealy 51 – Harris English 52 – Max Homa 53 – Sungjae Im 54 – Jordan Spieth 55 – Sam Stevens 56 – Pierceson Coody 57 – Sudarshan Yellamaraju 58 – Harry Hall 59 – Corey Conners 60 – Daniel Berger 61 – Michael Kim 62 – Shane Lowry 63 – Nick Taylor 64 – Jordan Smith 65 – Brian Harman 66 – Patrick Rodgers 67 – Aldrich Potgieter 68 – Ricky Castillo 69 – Matti Schmid 70 – Jackson Koivun
