The Five: What's on the line at the World Wide Technology Championship

Prove it.

On the modern PGA TOUR with its disparate tournaments, venues and vibes; across oceans, time zones and formats; the messaging remains the same: Prove it. Think you deserve a TOUR card? Prove it. Think you belong in the field for the 2024 Signature Events? Major worthiness? Prove it.

With the FedExCup top 50 getting into all Signature Events for 2024, and others able to play their way into tournaments via The Next 10 and The Swing 5, the butterfly effect is stronger than ever, with what happens in Japan reverberating in Mexico, Bermuda, Georgia, Oahu and in other places and ways we can’t even know.

With three tournaments remaining until the TOUR breaks for the holidays, and the January return to a calendar-year season awaiting, the next 18 days will be especially impactful. This week’s proving ground: Baja, Mexico.

Here are five things on the line at the World Wide Technology Championship.

Kuest for the card

Job No. 1 for most in the FedExCup Fall is to finish in the top 125 to set up full PGA TOUR status for 2024. That means players like No. 123 Doug Ghim, a former amateur standout, No. 129 Jimmy Walker, the 2016 PGA Championship winner, and No. 138 Peter Kuest, playing as a Special Temporary Member, are on either side of a crucial line of demarcation with just three tournaments remaining.

(The season-ending RSM Classic, Nov. 16-19, will have a special resonance this year.)

Ghim, Walker, Kuest and others could do themselves a favor by thriving at 7,452-yard, par-72 El Cardonal at Diamante, the first Tiger Woods design to host a TOUR event.

Troy Merritt has played through putting woes and posted two top-10 finishes this fall to go from 133th to 115th, but is he safe? Maybe not quite. He’s in the field this week.

Gate-crasher cred

A handful of non-members also hope to play their way onto the TOUR in ’24.

Kuest, who Monday-qualified into this week’s field, finished T4 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and T17 at the John Deere Classic to become a Special Temporary Member. He has 276 non-member FedExCup points, which would put him 138th in the current FedExCup standings. He needs to equal or surpass No. 125 after The RSM Classic to get his card.

Isaiah Salinda, who got in this week via his T7 at the Shriners Children’s Open on Oct. 15, also is looking to establish a foothold on TOUR. The Stanford product, whose performance at the Shriners was his lone top 10 in nine career starts, has 78 non-member points.

Ryo Ishikawa, the 32-year-old from Japan who played on the 2009 and 2011 International Presidents Cup teams, is in Mexico thanks to his T4 finish at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan two weeks ago. He has 127 non-member FedExCup points.

Michael Block, meanwhile, is enjoying another PGA TOUR start via his Southern California PGA Match Play Championship win. Block, 47, is the teaching pro who won hearts with his T15 finish at the PGA Championship in May, thereby earning a spot in the field at the ’24 PGA. He also won the SCPGA Professional Championship to earn spots in the fields at the upcoming American Express and Farmers Insurance Open.

He’s made five of 27 cuts and a total of $326,371 on the PGA TOUR.

Attention this week will also be paid to Billy Davis, 17, of Spring Valley, California, whose twin sister, Anna Davis, won the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Both played on the U.S. Junior Ryder Cup Team and will play golf for Auburn starting next fall. Second in the Rolex AJGA Rankings, Davis has already won in Mexico, at the AJGA Mayakoba Invitational in April.

Another victory south of the border this week is a longshot, but at least he’s there – he chipped in for birdie on the first playoff hole to Monday qualify in Chula Vista, California, on Oct. 16.

Signature moments

Keith Mitchell is the only player to finish in the top five at both the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (T4) and The Genesis Invitational (fifth) this year. He would love to return in ’24, but they’ll be Signature Events, and Mitchell didn’t finish in the FedExCup top 50. (He was 64th.)

He can still get in, though, via The Next 10, which in this case means finishing the FedExCup Fall in the window of Nos. 51-60. (He’s currently 68th).

“One of my favorite events of the year,” he said of Pebble Beach on Tuesday. “Not only because I felt like I've had some success there on the course, but just the week in general is a lot of fun. A lot of great relationships I've made at that tournament. Having the amateurs and celebrities there really brings a lot of different perspective to our game, which I feel like is a good one that week.

“And then Riviera,” he continued, “I hadn't played in a while but obviously had a great run this year. Played a lot better than I anticipated, to say the least, just because I hadn't played that golf course in probably four or five years. It's always been one of my favorites.”

El Cardonal is a long track, and Mitchell is a long hitter, so this could be a good week for him. So could The RSM at Sea Island, his home course. As he noted, two good weeks and he’s in.

Here’s how The Next 10 looks:

51. Beau Hossler
52. Taylor Montgomery
53. Nick Hardy
54. Ben Griffin
55. Alex Smalley (not in this week’s field)
56. J.J. Spaun
57. Mackenzie Hughes
58. Stephan Jaeger
59. Luke List
60. Thomas Detry

Bagels and breadsticks

Last season’s Rookie of the Year, Cameron Young, who has contended all the way to the bitter end in major championships, does not have a PGA TOUR victory to his name. (The proverbial bagel in the win column, which would turn into a breadstick with a win.)

Young, who narrowly missed out on a captain’s pick for the recent Ryder Cup in Rome, returns to action at El Cardonal after a 10-week break. He’s in all the Signature Events for ’24, having made it to the BMW Championship outside Chicago, where he finished T15 and saw his FedExCup Playoffs run end outside the top 30 (No. 42).

Another long hitter, he might be well-suited for El Cardonal.

Beau Hossler, who at 51st in the FedExCup Fall is almost a lock to earn a spot in the first two Signature Events (after The Sentry) of ’24, is also knocking on the door for his first win. In 33 starts this season, Hossler has five top 10s, including a T2 at the ZOZO in his last start. He lost a playoff to Ian Poulter at the 2018 Houston Open.

Major opportunity

Ludvig Åberg, who not long ago was still in college, has had an active last five months.

The first player to finish atop the PGA TOUR University Ranking, thereby earning his TOUR card, Åberg has momentum as he heads to the first tee at El Cardonal. He’s racked up six straight top-15 finishes worldwide, including a win at the DP World Tour’s Omega European Masters. He also got a Ryder Cup captain’s pick and went a sporty 2-2-0 in Rome.

Crucially, he’s 58th in the Official World Golf Ranking, up from 914th at the start of the summer. If he finishes 2023 in the top 50 in the world – a good bet given his present trajectory – he’ll earn a spot in the field for the 2024 Masters Tournament. He’s still never played in a major.