The first leg of the PGA Tour playoff stops in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
After this week’s playoff event the field will be trimmed from 125 to 70 to compete in the BMW Championship next week.
But this week for those that were on the bubble and will not make the 70 that travel on can feel secure that they will retain their status for next season by making the field of 125 this week.
Tony Finau won last year’s opening round playoff event, The Northern Trust, and after back-to-back wins is a favorite to finish high this week. However, as opposed to the 3M Open, and Rocket Mortgage Classic the field for this week’s event will feature the top players in the world.
Notables in the field this week
With the obvious absence of the LIV Golf members that were suspended (more to come on that). All of the top players are in the field for this week’s playoff event.
| Rory McIlroy | Scottie Scheffler | Cameron Smith | Jon Rahm |
| Justin Thomas | Xander Schauffele | Patrick Cantlay | Matt Fitzpatrick |
| Tony Finau | Sam Burns | Collin Morikawa | Jordan Speith |
| Will Zalatoris | Cameron Young | Viktor Hovland | Hideki Matsuyama |
LIV Litigation
We’ve arrived at the court battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.
11 golfers that have participated in the LIV Golf Invitational Series were suspended by the PGA Tour. The suspended golfers have filed an anti-trust suit against the Tour.
Three of the suspended golfers (Talor Gooch, Matt Jones, and Hudson Swafford) are seeking also seeking injunctive relief to participate in the FedEx Cup playoffs starting this week in Memphis.
Gooch, Jones, and Swafford were within the 125 eligible for the FedEx Cup playoff prior to their suspension in June. The trio were officially removed from the FedEx Cup standings in late July as announced by the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour filed a counter suit to keep the suspended golfers out of the playoffs.
A hearing is scheduled for August 9, at 1 pm PT in San Jose, CA to determine if the trio of LIV players will be allowed to participate in the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Players to watch
Tony Finau
Tony broke his winless drought of 5 years by winning the Northern Trust last year which served as the opening round event of the 2021 FedEx Cup playoff.
He went on to finish T15 at the BMW Championship, and T11 at the Tour Championship.
Finau is coming off of back-to-back wins to finish the season winning the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic in consecutive weeks.
Harold Varner III
HV3 is entering the FedEx Cup playoff after playing a limited scheduled over the last month and a half. Varner missed the cut at last week’s Wyndham Championship after going 70-70 in his first event since the Open Championship where he finished T28.
Sahith Theegala
Sahith has had a whirlwind of a rookie season. Not quite worthy of rookie of the year honors due to the outstanding play of Cam Young, however still in the conversation.
Theegala has made 23 cuts out of 29 events entered. In those 23 cuts made Sahith has 9 top 25 finishes, 5 top-10s, a third place, and a brutal 2nd place finish which was the Travelers Championship.
Sahith was leading the Travelers entering the final hole of the tournament, however a double bogey led to a T2 finish.
Tee Times
Finau: Thursday – 9:10 AM EDT; Friday – 1:55 PM EDT
Varner: Thursday – 1:22 PM EDT; Friday – 8:37 AM EDT
Theegala: Thursday – 1:44 PM EDT ; Friday – 8:59 AM EDT
How to watch
*All times eastern*
Golf Channel:
Thursday & Friday: 3 PM – 7 PM
Saturday: 1 PM – 3 PM
Sunday : 12 PM – 2 PM
NBC:
Saturday: 3PM – 6 PM
Sunday: 2 PM – 6 PM