How does the FedEx Cup points system work? Everything you need to know
The last event of the PGA Tour season, the Wyndham Championship, will conclude in a few hours, finalizing the Top 70 finishes in the FedEx Cup. These golfers will constitute the field for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first event of the post-season playoffs.
As we approach the playoffs, it's a good time to look at how the points system for the FedEx Cup actually works.
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The FedEx Cup takes the whole season into account
The first thing to keep in mind is that the distribution of points for the FedEx Cup rankings began in September 2022, with the opening of the 2022-23 season. Since then, at each tournament, players have received points in correspondence with their finish.
All tournaments sanctioned by the PGA Tour award points for the FedEx Cup, although not all of them in the same amount or in the same way. In fact, tournaments are grouped into four categories: Majors, Designated Events, Additional Events and PGA Tour Events.
Majors and Designated Events
The majors are the four tournaments recognized as such (Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, US Open and The Open) plus The PLAYERS Championship. They award 600 points to the winner.
The Designated Events refer to those that permanently carry that condition (Sentry Tournament of Champions, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational, WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and Memorial Tournament). These award 550 points to the winner.
Events designated for a season are treated as PGA Tour Events.
Additional and PGA Tour Events
Additional Events are those co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and other circuits, which are not the same every season. They award 300 points to the winner, because it is understood that there are not enough PGA Tour players in the field to consider them as competitive as the other events.
For the same reason, Additional Events only award points to official PGA Tour members and not to other special member categories.
PGA Tour Events are all other tournaments not included in the above categories. These award 500 points to the winner.
In addition, there is one event that has a unique status: the Zurich Classic at New Orleans. The only team tournament on the PGA Tour schedule awards 400 points to each member of the winning duo.
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Non-winners, ties and more
But, what about players who don't win? All players who make the cut get FedEx Cup points (there are some exceptions).
There is a list of the points received by the players from the second place down on the leaderboard. The amount depends on the category of the tournament, just as it does for the winners.
What about ties? Well, the organizers calculate it based on the places that would correspond to the tied players. They add up the points assigned to those places and divide them by the number of tied players.
Points during the three playoffs
The postseason playoffs reduced their field for the 2022-23 season from 125 to 70 for the first tournament. This was done to increase competitiveness and money prizes.
In the first tournament (FedEx St. Jude Championship) the top 50 in the rankings qualify. In the second (BMW Championship) the top 30 will do so, but both tournaments have their distinction.
The first two playoffs quadruple the points for the FedEx Cup ranking (taking as a reference the PGA Tour Events). This means they award 2,000 points to the winner, 1,200 to the second place, 760 to the third and so on.
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The Tour Championship, final event of the FedEx Cup and of the season, has yet another surprise in store: The first place in the ranking (plus ties) starts the tournament with a score of -10, the second (plus ties) with -8, and so on, until number 30 (who starts at even par).
These are the scores with which players start the Tour Championship:
- 1-seed: (10 under)
- 2-seed: (8 under)
- 3-seed: (7 under)
- 4-seed: (6 under)
- 5-seed: (5 under)
- Seeds 6-10: (4 under)
- Seeds 11-15: (3 under)
- Seeds 16-20: (2 under)
- Seeds 21-25: (1 under)
- Seeds 26-30: (par)
Points awarded during the FedEx St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship: