Despite holding a share of the lead after the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Thursday, Jordan Spieth didn’t have enough in the tank this weekend to push himself into the top 50 of the FedEx Cup points race.
Instead, Sungjae Im of South Korea was the only golfer to play his way into the second leg of the PGA Tour’s three-week playoffs.
Despite a disappointing final-round 74 that took him out of contention for the victory Sunday at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Im tied for fifth (7 under par) and that was more than enough to boost him from 53rd in points to 40th. Only the top 50 players in the chase move on to the BMW Championship.
The one player to give up his spot was Keith Mitchell, who entered the week 49th overall, tied for 34th at the St. Jude at 1 under and fell two spots to 51st. Matt McCarty (T63, 7 over) slipped from 48th to the 50th and final qualifying spot.
Spieth, meanwhile, entered the week No. 54 in the standings and needed a solo 23rd finish just to have a mathematical chance of advancing. He was in fine position to achieve that after opening the tournament with rounds of 65 and 69.
But a 2-over 72 Saturday and an even-par 70 Sunday impeded his progress, and he settled for a five-way tie for 19th at 4 under. He landed No. 52 in points, the second one out.
“I needed to be almost flawless (Sunday). When the wind was blowing, it’s a hard golf course,” Spieth said.
He was 2 under for his round through 10 holes but recorded three bogeys with one birdie from Nos. 11-15.
“(Saturday) really set me back,” Spieth said. “Felt like I stayed pretty calm, got off to the start I wanted (Sunday). Then around that 11, 12, 13, 14 stretch, if you can get through there unscathed, you know you’re looking at some opportunities on the other holes. I did pretty well around those holes this week, but (Sunday) kind of caught a couple that could have gone one way or the other and ended up mis-executing the shots just barely and didn’t get away of it.”
Spieth reiterated the confidence he had in the way he was playing as his season came to an unceremonious end.
“In some ways I feel like I’m leaving some out there, and in some ways it’s a good thing because like I mentioned after the first round, this will be the last time I finish like this for a while,” Spieth said.
“I’m very, very confident in what’s coming. I just ran out of steam and maybe made a couple bad decisions over about a six-week stretch on what I was working on, and I just didn’t quite have enough time to make up for it.”
Other notable players who did not advance to the BMW Championship included Max Homa (No. 53), Harris English (No. 54), Corey Conners of Canada (No. 59), Shane Lowry of Ireland (No. 62), Brian Harman (No. 65) and rising rookie Jackson Koivun (No. 67).
Below is the full list of the 50 players to qualify for the BMW. The top 30 players in points following that tournament qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship.
1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Matt Fitzpatrick
3. Cameron Young
4. Si Woo Kim
5. Wyndham Clark
6. Sam Burns
7. Chris Gotterup
8. Tommy Fleetwood
9. Collin Morikawa
10. Ludvig Aberg
11. Xander Schauffele
12. Jacob Bridgeman
13. Rory McIlroy
14. Russell Henley
15. Akshay Bhatia
16. Hideki Matsuyama
17. Ryan Gerard
18. Min Woo Lee
19. Kristoffer Reitan
20. Alex Fitzpatrick
21. J.J. Spaun
22. Viktor Hovland
23. Alex Smalley
24. Justin Rose
25. Ryan Fox
26. Tom Kim
27. Adam Scott
28. Kurt Kitayama
29. Bud Cauley
30. Rickie Fowler
31. Gary Woodland
32. J.T. Poston
33. Nicolai Hojgaard
34. Alex Noren
35. Jake Knapp
36. Robert MacIntyre
37. Aaron Rai
38. Ben Griffin
39. Sepp Straka
40. Sungjae Im
41. Michael Thorbjornsen
42. Nico Echavarria
43. Patrick Cantlay
44. Justin Thomas
45. Ryo Hisatsune
46. Sahith Theegala
47. Michael Brennan
48. Eric Cole
49. Maverick McNealy
50. Matt McCarty
–Field Level Media
