Bubble trouble, FedExCup math and golf's craziest day

MEMPHIS, Tenn.– Max Greyserman canceled his flight to Denver for the BMW Championship, which seemed smart until he shot a 7-under 63 on Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

Denver was back in play, which meant the flight home to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was potentially out.

The FedExCup Playoffs can be hell on travel agents. Players don't know if they're headed home or to the following event, their hopes still intact.

“Hopefully it goes my way,” said Greyserman, who came into the week at FedExCup No. 47.

It did.

The not-so-subtle subplot Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship was the mad scramble to finish in the top 50 of the FedExCup standings, thereby advancing to the BMW and earning an exemption into next year's Signature Events.

Like Eric Cole (63), Cam Davis (67), Maverick McNealy (64), Keegan Bradley (68) and others, Greyserman, who was coming off very different runner-up finishes in his last two starts, planned to spend a not-very-relaxing afternoon hitting the “refresh” button on his phone.

“Whether you’re on the cut line, trying to win, trying to finish top 50, ... it’s all the same type of feeling,” said Greyserman, whose supporters on-site included his wife, Alyssa Smith, and their dog, Lilly; his father, Alex, and his dog, Leo; and his coach, Jeff Smith, who teaches out of Spring Creek Ranch in Memphis.

To understand the significance of Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude, it helps to recall Hideki Matsuyama last year, when he went 5-under for his last six holes to shoot 65 and finish T16. That got him inside the FedExCup top 50 and qualified him for the BMW (he withdrew with a back injury) and, crucially, this season’s Signature Events. He won the third one, The Genesis Invitational, in February.

“It's a cool thing that this FedExCup provides,” said Cole, last year’s Arnold Palmer Award winner as Rookie of the Year. “There's drama. You don't really know where you're going to be. It's going to be kind of fun to sit back in the AC and watch them come down the final stretch.”

Greyserman, who made a tough up-and-down par on 18, got through. So did Cole, who also made a clutch putt at the last, his to salvage a bogey. (Cole, too, canceled his flight to Denver only to have to rebook it after his stellar final round.)

Both were helped by Cam Davis, who double-bogeyed the brutally-hard finishing hole.

“I've done it every year for the last three years,” said a glum Davis, thinking he'd missed the mark. A lot is at stake for him as he tries to also make his second International Presidents Cup Team for this year's competition at Royal Montreal in September. “I feel like I'm constantly in this position where you've had a good season but still a little low missing next year, which doesn't feel right, and it's extra frustrating right now that I finished the way I did after playing the way I did all the way up until that point.

“I had a feeling if I parred the last, I would have been fine,” he added.

But wait!

Davis, who won the Rocket Mortgage Classic earlier this summer for the second time in four years, would get back in thanks to the calamity of Tom Kim, who finished bogey, double-bogey, double-bogey for a final-round 71. Kim, who began the week FedExCup No. 43 and who was still projected at a comfortable 46th as he stood on the 16th tee, had finished 6-6-6 and was now projected to tumble all the way to 51st, saving Davis.

“This season has just been – it's just been like this,” Kim said. “I've played really good golf, and then had some tough finishes. I feel like 2024 has really kicked me in the butt.” Kim would need Nick Dunlap, a two-time winner this season, to bogey the last hole to get back in; Dunlap (69, T5) did not comply and will advance to the BMW.

"I knew roughly," Dunlap said of his precarious position. "I was a train wreck. I'm not going to lie to you. I was arguably the most nervous I've ever been, to be honest. I just didn't want the season to end."

Some victories were bittersweet. Maverick McNealy, who had his little brother, Scout, on the bag and started the week at 59th in the FedExCup, went 4-under for the last six holes, including a hole-out from the sand at the par-5 16th hole, to card a 6-under 64. McNealy was projected to move to 50th.

“There’s something about having your back against the wall that lets you do things that you can't normally do under normal circumstances,” he said after making five birdies, one eagle and a bogey. “It narrows your focus. It heightens your awareness. It does some pretty fun stuff, and it's a feeling that you really chase as a professional athlete.”

He and his wife, Maya, plus caddie Scout planned to go to the airport, stare at their phones, and wait for some official word as to whether they should fly to Denver or back home to Las Vegas. In the end, too many players, led by Billy Horschel and Robert MacIntyre, would pass him on the leaderboard. McNealy slipped to 51st, 52nd, and finally 53rd.

“We really gave it everything this year,” he said.

Not making the top 50 didn’t mean he was any less proud of the effort.

Greyserman, too, was pleased with his season, which will keep going at next week’s BMW. At the Wyndham a week ago, he’d quadruple-bogeyed 14, double-bogeyed 16 and lost by two to Aaron Rai. Now, though, Greyserman, who bears a facial resemblance to Rory McIlroy, was on the other side of it.

“Some guys down the stretch kind of helped me out a little bit,” Greyserman said as he walked to his car in the parking lot. “Just thankful to make it through, you know? I did what I could and then got some help from other people. I hope everyone plays great, but there’s got to be someone who finishes 51, 52, 53, and fortunately that wasn’t me this year.”

He hasn’t had two straight weeks off since February; now he can take the fall off, if he wants.

“I feel like it’s just a total career-changing moment,” he said, “getting inside the top 50 – more points, more money, and I just feel like you learn, playing against the best players, more about yourself and your game.

“My life has changed a lot in the last couple hours.”

So had a lot of others.