[Photo: Andy Lyons]
In my review of season 1, episode 4 of the Netflix documentary “Full Swing”, I wrote this: “It’s just Joel, and he’s all they needed.”
My feelings on the best ever episode of that show are basically the same today as we gear up for the last four events of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Fall swing, where the best players in the world stay at home drinking apple cider, other sports rule our televisions, and we here at Golf Digest scour the landscape for reasons to care.
RELATED: Golf influencer brand hits the big leagues, will sponsor PGA Tour event
It’s easy to think of this as the second-tier season, but Dahmen’s odyssey really is redeeming. He’s 103rd in the FedEx Cup standings, and if you’ve followed his life story – losing his mum to cancer, fighting off cancer himself, his incredible relationship with caddie Geno Bonnalie (two of the very few people in professional golf with great senses of humour), and the gut-wrenching break-up of that pair this July – it won’t take much convincing to make you cheer for Dahmen. And if you do need convincing, watch both of his “Full Swing” episodes, in seasons 1 and 2, for a primer on his wild journey.
So, the stakes: the top 100 players at the end of FedEx Cup Fall get guaranteed status into next year’s full-field events and a spot in the Players Championship, which is more important than ever since the new maximum field size is 144, with many events, like the Players Championship itself, cut down to 120. When you consider how the other spots will be eaten up by incoming players from the Korn Ferry Tour, DP World Tour, Q-School, and various other exemption categories, there’s so much less room for players with “conditional status”, i.e. those finishing from 100th to 125th after the “fall” season ends at the RSM Classic in late November.
In other words, the difference between finishing 100th in the rankings and finishing 101st could be a huge amount of starts. Dahmen’s on the wrong side of that bubble now, just barely, and his form thus far in the northern autumn has been rough, with two missed cuts and a T-69 in Japan two weeks ago.
Back in that Netflix episode, he had an all-time one liner: “Somebody’s got to be the 70th-best golfer in the world. It might as well be me.” But now he’s the 184th-ranked player in the world, he’s 37 years old, and these next four tournaments feel critical to the remainder of his career. You can imagine a future where he resurrects his career, wins on tour and remains a fixture for five years or more. But if he can’t fight his way to the top 100 in the next month, it’s also very easy to see him disappearing for good.
If you want a short version of what makes golf at this time of year compelling, here it is – a guy that most of us care about, with his entire career hanging in the balance.
So, yes, Dahmen might be all we need, but in case you want more, here are seven other guys with everything to play for in the next month.
Aldrich Potgieter (current position: 52nd) 
Photo: Icon Sportswire
Every year about this time, we get swamped with rumours about who might be going to LIV Golf, and this year Potgieter’s name is floating around. It could be absolute nonsense, but the fact that some of those rumours have come true at least makes you pay attention. I say all this because Potgieter, a young South African, is 52nd in the standings right now, and the “Aon Next 10” – the players finishing 50-60 – get into the first two signature events of the season, at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Potgieter is a true ‘baller’ who should have won in Mexico and then did win at the Rocket Classic in Detroit, and you wonder whether having an in on those two signature events might influence his LIV decision, if indeed there’s a decision to be made.
Wyndham Clark (59th) 
Photo: Stuart Kerr/R&A
It has not been a banner year for Clark, whose rise into the world’s top five last year, after his US Open win in 2023, felt justified. He gave every indication of a guy who took some time to get the mental side of his life in order, but who, once he managed it, was legitimately one of the most talented golfers in the world. It all went south in 2025, highlighted by the embarrassment of destroying a locker at Oakmont (and the ensuing public humiliation the club visited on him), and he’s now a man looking for a rebound. If he stays in the top 60, he’ll get into the first two signature events next year, and while he’s already exempt into Pebble since he won there in ’24, he’ll want the springboard of Riviera too. So far, he’s only played in one FedEx Cup Fall event, and he won’t compete in Utah this week, but expect him to show up late to try to preserve his top-60 spot.
Max Homa (100th) 
Photo: Andy Lyons
Homa doesn’t need to finish in the top 100 to be exempt for next season, but it does feel like he needs some great showings to give him a little momentum after a rough year. He’s watched his world ranking plummet to 127th after spending time in the top 10 in 2023 and 2024, and all signs of progress have either been halting or flat-out illusory. Still, things seem to be getting a little bitter with a pair of recent top-20 finishes, and even if it’s a stretch to imagine him getting into the top 60 to qualify for the signature events, he remains one of the most interesting players to watch starting this week in Utah.
Isaiah Salinda (101st) 
Photo: Lachlan Cunningham
Salinda is a lesser-known player, but his story is fascinating – his parents were immigrants from the Philippines, he grew up in humble surroundings, and after working to get a scholarship to Stanford University, he found out as he was starting his freshman year that he had a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that threatened his whole career. He has to watch his heart rate during workouts, and as he joked to Kevin Prise, he’s lucky he picked golf as his sport. He came through to win a team national championship with Stanford in 2019 and make the PGA Tour this year for his rookie campaign. He’ll desperately want to crack the top 100 in the next month and stands out as a fun guy to cheer for.
Billy Horschel (112th) 
Photo: Harry How
Horschel’s status is secure for next year, but he can still play his way into signature events, and more than that, it’ll be interesting to see if he can play himself into form after missing most of the year with injury. Returns are iffy so far, with a missed cut in Europe and a T-54 at the Procore Championship last month, but his comeback has just begun, and you can never count him out.
Adam Hadwin (143rd) 
Photo: Raj Mehta
In Hadwin’s own words, after years of ups and downs, “This year I haven’t really had any of those ups.” Things have gone from bad to worse for Hadwin, who is now coming off three missed cuts, and the bad news is he has no status to fall back on for next year. All of which means the 37-year-old Canadian has a lot of work to do to get inside the top 100, and not many signs indicating he can pull it off. Still, it’ll be worth seeing if one of golf’s more likeable journeymen can stage a late reversal, and if we’ll get to spend another year laughing at his wife Jessica’s tweets.
Seamus Power (135th) 
Photo: Stacy Revere
We had to pick one more guy far down the list who raised an eyebrow, and Power qualifies. The 38-year-old Irishman has no special exemptions for next year, and hip and back issues have knocked him down the world ranking and the tour standings throughout a tough past two years. For a guy who has been a fixture of the tour for a very long time, with two wins to his credit, it would be a big drop to lose out on full status. Like many others, he has four weeks to make it right.
