Bubble watch: Follow players on cusp of earning PGA TOUR card at Korn Ferry Tour Championship

It’s the final week of the season on the Korn Ferry Tour, and the biggest week when it comes to the potential for dreams to come true.

Seventeen PGA TOUR cards have already been secured, including by No. 1 on the Points List, Matt McCarty, who has taken his Three-Victory Promotion to the TOUR this week at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

The top 30 on the Points List after the Korn Ferry Tour Championship will earn 2025 PGA TOUR membership. There are still 13 cards to be determined this week at the 72-hole Korn Ferry Tour Championship, which features no cut at French Lick Golf Resort’s Pete Dye Course in southern Indiana.

Watching the bubble will be a hearty effort through the four days of competition. Someone’s golfing future could very well hang in the balance of a single putt for a well-struck iron shot.

Some of the names that are just inside the top 30 are known and notable already in golf’s big circles. Sam Bennett, the low amateur at last year’s Masters, holds the all-important No. 30 spot. He won the 2022 U.S. Amateur and has notched 10 top 25s this season on the Korn Ferry Tour. Then there’s Aldrich Potgieter, who at just over 19 years old won The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club in January. He sits at No. 27 in the Points List heading into the season finale – less than eight points ahead of Bennett at No. 30.

You can cut the tension with a razor’s edge, while the margins are just as razor thin, too.

It’s set to be an epic week in Indiana and especially so for these five on the bubble.

And for everything else you need to know about this week at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, click here.

Trent Phillips

No. 31 on the Points List, Trent Phillips trails Sam Bennett by just 43 points. You can’t get more on the bubble than that. Phillips has never been a PGA TOUR member, and his last start on TOUR came at the Wyndham Championship in 2022. Phillips springtime stretch was solid, notching three top 10s in seven events between February and April – including a season-high tie for second at The Panama Championship. He cooled down in the summer, however, with his best result in the last six events being a tie for 52nd at the Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron.

Brandon Crick

It’s been a long journey for Brandon Crick and now, finally, he is so very close to breaking through to earn a PGA TOUR card for the first time.

Crick is a veteran of the Korn Ferry Tour, having turned 36 this year and is nearly his 15th year as a pro. He has played only two PGA TOUR events in his career (in 2013 and 2020) and was awfully emotional last season after finishing No. 76 on the Points List and missing the Korn Ferry Tour Championship by such a narrow margin. He battled back, however, and after starting the year with three missed cuts in a row he has played super steady. Crick comes into the season finale with some momentum and is right there at No. 33 in the Points List. He’s also got long-time supporter in fellow Nebraska native Larry The Cable Guy, who said in August that he would be letting out plenty of emotion if Crick finally stamped his ticket to the TOUR.

“If he gets his card at the end of the year,” the media celebrity said, “guess who’s going to cry like a little baby.”

Carter Jenkins

Carter Jenkins has picked a pretty darn good time to play the best golf of his season. At No. 37 on the Points List, Jenkins finished tied for second at the penultimate event of the season – the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship – to jump almost 20 spots and within shouting distance of a PGA TOUR card. Three of Jenkins’ top-10 results this season have come in the last six events – after a tough run of four missed cuts in a row through June and early July.

Jenkins earned a spot in the U.S. Open this year but has never held a PGA TOUR card, and 2025 will be his ninth year as a pro.

Dalton Ward

Another golfer that has spent a long time trying to get to the PGA TOUR and is now right on the cusp is Dalton Ward. Ward, who turned professional a decade ago, has never earned a PGA TOUR card. Ward started the year with a bang, notching two top-three finishes in his first five events. He’ll need to rekindle some of that magic in the season finale, however, at No. 36 in the Points List.

Trey Winstead

Trey Winstead’s season could have been different if there was just one particular round that was just a little bit better. Winstead shot 73 in the final round of the Astara Chile Classic presented by Scotiabank and lost in a playoff back in March. Now, with just one event left in the season, he sits No. 32 in the Points List. Winstead has had four top 10s this season including a well-timed tie for fourth at the Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron at the end of August. Winstead, an LSU alum, has never made a start on the PGA TOUR in his pro career – so how nice of a start to his TOUR career be then as a full-fledged member?