Only four rounds are left in the PGA TOUR Regular Season, nearly 11 months after the marathon started. This week in North Carolina will be the most difficult and most intense for many Wyndham Championship players. Although many players are mathematically capable of moving within the top 125 on FedExCup to earn Playoffs seats, only a handful actually make it inside the bubble once they arrive in Greensboro. Only three players made it from the bottom 125 to the magic number in 2020 and 2021. The average number of players who move in has been just 2.4 since 2012. Twenty First Group performed more than 10,000 simulations this week of the Wyndham Championship in order to determine the probability of each player qualifying for the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southernwind in Germantown. Here are the results. 120. Nick Taylor points ahead of 126th: 27.3 FedExCup playoffs probability: 95.4%. Nick Taylor, two-time winner of the TOUR, is still in contention for playoff eligibility. He has placed between 120th to 130th in the FedExCup standings at least three times since 2016. Scott Stallings is tied for second with this number of such finishes. After missing four of his five previous cuts, the Canadian is a little rusty as he attempts to reach the postseason for the sixth consecutive year. Taylor has a strong track record in Greensboro. He was tied for eighth in 2018, thanks to a final round 63, and tied for 10th last year. Five players have ever moved into the top 125 during the Regular Season’s final week under the current points format. It will be an historic weekend for Taylor to get out of Tennessee. 121. Chesson Hadley points ahead of 126th: 24.4 FedExCup Playoffs probability: 87.1%. A year ago, Chesson Hadley crafted a remarkable closing stretch to sneak into No. 125. He finished Sunday with six birdies and a hole in one at the par-3 16th. This put him ahead of Justin Rose by one point. Hadley doesn’t need to be a back-nine 29 in order to qualify for this season. A 10th-place finish at the 3M Open two weeks ago likely got him in. But, two strong rounds in North Carolina would help. Hadley, a native of North Carolina, has 16 rounds of par or better at Wyndham Championship with a score average of 67.9 during that stretch. 123. Rickie fowler points ahead of 126th. 19.4 FedExCup Playoffs probability: 72.0%. After almost winning THE CJ CUP@ SUMMIT, this season has been another battle on the course for Rickie fowler. He’s now losing strokes per round for the first time in his PGA TOUR professional career. He’s now outside the top 100 for that statistic, which is a result of his once-unbeatable putting. In 2017, he was the TOUR’s leader in Strokes Gained: Plating. There are some positives ahead of Fowler’s last Regular Season start. He is currently 123rd in FedExCup and on the right side at Wyndham’s dividing line. Last year, he was 130th, but didn’t get enough time to advance. Since May’s beginning, he has made six of eight cuts. He is now averaging positive Strokes gained: Total (+0.14) as well as Tee-to-Green (+0.22) per rounds. Fowler has a 72% chance to advance to the Playoffs with a cushion of 19 points over 126th. Twenty First Group offers more than 19 points. 124. Matt Wallace points ahead of 126th: 11.5 FedExCup Playoffs probability: 41.0%. After failing to make the cut at the Genesis Scottish Open Matt Wallace’s Playoffs prospects looked very bleak. He was ranked outside the top 140 points, and had only made four cuts in 14 PGA TOUR starts. The talented Englishman has recovered and finished T26 at last week’s 3M Open and T10 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. He now has a chance to play his way into Memphis. In the last two weeks of the PGA TOUR, 25 players have made it to the cut in Minnesota and Michigan. Wallace is the best player in this group with an average of 1.21 strokes per round on greens. 125. Austin Smotherman points ahead of 126th. 10.2 FedExCup Playoffs probability: 29.2%. Every season since 2014, at most one player has made it into the Playoffs from the bottom 125. This was due to his performance at Wyndham Championship. Austin Smotherman, a 28-year-old PGA TOUR rookie, will need to score a lot of points to keep his campaign alive. The rookie has not had any problems recently, having made the cut in nine out of 11 attempts, including an impressive eighth-place finish at the Barracuda Championship. 130. Cameron Champ points behind 125th: 27.1 FedExCup playoffs probability: 12.4%. Cameron Champ has never ranked within the top 125 of the points race at any point in this season. However, after two back-to-back top-20s from the Rocket Mortgage Classic and 3M Open, Champ has a chance to make a big jump this weekend. Champ has struggled a lot on the greens throughout the season. However, he seems to have found his groove the last two weeks. He ranked in the top 20 for Strokes Gained, putting in both Minneapolis, and Detroit. After entering the Wyndham Championship at No. 130 or less Multiple players have attempted it four times. Cameron Champ, another strong player on the greens, could be a contender for 2022. Champ won’t be playing this week for his card, which is a good thing for him. He will be fully exempt next year, regardless of what happens this week. This is due to his win at the 3M Open last year.
By: Justin Ray, Twenty First Group
Title: Breaking down the FedExCup Playoffs bubble into Wyndham Championship
Sourced From: www.pgatour.com/statsreport/2022/08/02/breaking-down-the-fedexcup-playoffs-bubble-125-into-wyndham-championship.html
Published Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2022 11:00:00 -0400
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