The Five: Players with highest stakes in FedExCup Fall’s closing stretch

It’s bubble season on the PGA TOUR, with three events remaining to determine fully exempt status for 2025.

The top 125 on the FedExCup Fall standings, finalized after The RSM Classic in late November, will earn fully exempt status on the 2025 PGA TOUR. (The top 50 on the FedExCup, finalized after the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August, are fully exempt and qualify for all 2025 Signature Events.) With a mix of up-and-comers and veteran pros riding the bubble into November, the career implications are varied: Some might be on the verge of easing back into a new life chapter, while others eye a spark that could kick-start a run to stardom. Case in point, Ludvig Åberg, who won The RSM Classic last fall and now stands No. 5 on the Official World Golf Ranking.

Nos. 121-135 on the FedExCup Fall standings are separated by just 56 points, meaning little margin of error for players narrowly inside the number with three events left. (For context, a 15th-place finish in a FedExCup Fall event is worth 55 points.) If past is prescient, there will be make-or-break putts on Sunday afternoon at The RSM Classic, with professional futures hanging in the balance.

Nos. 126-150 on the FedExCup Fall standings will retain conditional status for 2025, with Nos. 151 and beyond (if not otherwise exempt) left to try their hand at PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry. The top five finishers and ties at Q-School’s Final Stage will earn 2025 PGA TOUR membership. (Nos. 151-200, if not otherwise exempt, will retain Korn Ferry Tour status.)

Here's a look at five players with high stakes heading into the FedExCup Fall’s closing gauntlet, which includes the World Wide Technology Championship, Butterfield Bermuda Championship and The RSM Classic.

Daniel Berger

Berger returned from a roughly 18-month injury hiatus at The American Express in January, and he has steadily worked back into form – he has made 12 cuts in 24 starts this season, with his season-best finish coming at the Sanderson Farms Championship earlier this month. He has followed that with back-to-back top-40 finishes at the Black Desert Championship and Shriners Children’s Open, setting the stage for a crucial three-week stretch ahead.

It has been a respectable comeback, but the four-time TOUR winner needs a bit more to keep fully exempt status for 2025. Berger stands No. 129 on the FedExCup Fall standings with three events remaining, eight points behind No. 125 Matt Wallace. It isn’t a significant deficit to overcome, but he won’t be able to back his way into exempt status; he needs to produce the results.

Berger was just 21 when he earned his TOUR card via the 2014 Korn Ferry Tour, and he qualified for the TOUR Championship in his first three TOUR seasons (and five of his first seven). After the 2022 U.S. Open, though, he stepped away from competitive golf to address debilitating back pain; he consulted multiple doctors, opted not to get surgery and spent more than a year rehabbing to let his body “heal itself.”

Upon returning at The American Express, Berger described his comeback as “kind of starting at ground zero.” Now he intends to top off that comeback with fully exempt status for 2025.

Wesley Bryan

Earlier this month, Bryan made the cut in dramatic fashion at the Black Desert Championship, draining a 14-foot eagle putt to conclude his second round on Saturday morning – after wrestling with the knowledge Friday evening that he faced a make-or-break moment.

Considering his position on the FedExCup Fall standings (No. 138), every point could be crucial – and Bryan knows it. The 34-year-old South Carolinian entered 2024 with limited TOUR status as a past champion, but he finished runner-up at the Corales Puntacana Championship to earn more starts, and he looks to take advantage in the next month. Bryan is rounding into form with three straight made cuts in the FedExCup Fall, including a T13 at the Procore Championship and a T21 at the Black Desert Championship, where he took advantage of that closing eagle to make the cut with weekend rounds of 67-66.

With three events remaining, Bryan trails No. 125 Wallace by 78 FedExCup points. Needing to jump 13 spots on the FedExCup Fall standings, it won’t be easy, but his outside pursuits could ease the pressure somewhat.

Bryan won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016 and quickly added his first TOUR title at the 2017 RBC Heritage in his home state, but he has dived into the content creation landscape in recent years, growing the “Bryan Bros Golf” YouTube brand with his brother George – who recently advanced through PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry’s First Stage. Both brothers still have plenty of game to compete, as well, and they’ll look to prove it this fall.

Joel Dahmen

Dahmen is sometimes self-deprecating, always honest and entertaining, but he doesn’t shy away from the next month’s heightened stakes. He’s trying to keep his job.

Dahmen moved from No. 129 to No. 124 on the FedExCup Fall standings with a T41 at last week’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, the beneficiary of a sponsor exemption at a crucial moment in the FedExCup Fall slate. It came on the heels of a snafu at the prior week’s Shriners Children’s Open, where he was penalized four strokes for a 15th club in the bag in the first round at TPC Summerlin, en route to missing the cut.

Dahmen, 36, knows that long-term TOUR status isn’t guaranteed – he’ll always be a past champion member at minimum, as winner of the 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship – but he’s cognizant that finishing outside the top 125 (even in the 126-150 category) means an uncertain future on TOUR. He spent six years across mini-tours, PGA TOUR Canada and the Korn Ferry Tour before earning his first TOUR card in 2016, and he has made 207 career starts on the game’s premier circuit. That opportunity has never been lost on him.

“I’ve been playing with fear since forever, since I got my TOUR card really,” Dahmen said in 2022. “I’m scared to death of having a job. I’ve never really had one … I don’t want to give this up. It’s one of the most coveted things in all of sports is a PGA TOUR card. Yeah, I just don’t want to give this up.”

Joe Highsmith

PGA TOUR rookie Joe Highsmith, known for his wide-brimmed hat, achieved the distinction this season as the first player to make three holes-in-one in the same PGA TOUR campaign. He recorded aces at The American Express, Rocket Mortgage Classic and Wyndham Championship.

Now he looks to solidify a spot as a fully exempt 2025 PGA TOUR member.

Highsmith stands No. 126 on the FedExCup Fall standings with three events remaining, trailing the all-important No. 125 spot (Wallace) by two FedExCup points. Wallace is fully exempt on the 2025 PGA TOUR via his victory at the 2023 Corales Puntacana Championship, so he won’t be feeling the same weight as Highsmith, who earned his first TOUR card via the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour – finishing second and third at the season’s last two events, respectively, to move inside the top 30 for a TOUR card.

A year ago, Highsmith thrived under the pressure of earning a TOUR card. Now the Pepperdine alum looks to embrace the similar pressure of maintaining a card.

“Building up the PGA TOUR to be this pinnacle that it really is … looking forward to it your entire life and then finally being out here, it's just a little crazy,” Highsmith said earlier this year.

He made it here, and he wants to stay.

Ben Griffin

The University of North Carolina alum is comfortably inside the top 125 to keep fully exempt status for 2025, but he’s one of several players jockeying for position to earn spots in the 2025 season’s first two Signature Events via the Aon Next 10. Griffin did so a year ago, finishing No. 53 on the 2023 FedExCup Fall standings, and he’s No. 60 on the standings with three events to play.

After the top 50 on the FedExCup (finalized after the FedEx St. Jude Championship), whose spots in all 2025 Signature Events are secured, Nos. 51 and beyond on the FedExCup standings carried their points into the FedExCup Fall. Nos. 51-60 on the FedExCup Fall standings after The RSM Classic will qualify for next year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational, long-running springtime stops at classic California venues that are now Signature Events.

Griffin, 28, is a second-year PGA TOUR pro who continues to knock on the door of his first title, including runner-up finishes at last fall’s Sanderson Farms Championship and this year’s RBC Canadian Open. He has notched two top 25s in his last three starts, including a final-round 64 for a T22 at the recent ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP that moved him from No. 62 to No. 60 on the FedExCup Fall standings. Now he looks to hold or improve that position across the next three weeks, with players in close pursuit including No. 61 Jake Knapp (20 points back), No. 62 Min Woo Lee (30 points back) and No. 63 Lucas Glover (36 points back).