[Photo: David Jensen]
When 21-year-old Jackson Koivun turned pro at the John Deere Classic earlier this summer, he knew he’d have five starts to try to reach the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings and make the playoffs, and it was a massive understatement to say he needed to “act fast.” The truth was, he probably needed to win to get that kind of boost, and once he missed the cut at the Deere and finished T-10 at the ISCO Championship, you could replace “probably” with “definitely.”
We know what happened next—he legitimized the great hype surrounding him almost immediately by holding off Scottie Scheffler and winning the 3M Open. That vaulted him 124 spots in the rankings, where he settled just inside the playoff cut line in 70th place. A 31st-place finish at the Rocket Classic kept him in the exact same spot, which meant that the Wyndham Classic, this week’s regular-season finale, would determine whether he’d ride the wave into the playoffs or wait for 2027.
Job number one was to make the cut, and Koivun’s 67-68 opening was good enough by three shots to make the weekend. From there, he just needed a solid, not even spectacular weekend to maintain his place. On Saturday, he did a bit better than “solid,” shooting a four under 66 to jump to T-17 and improve his projected playoff position to 67th.
“It’s hard not to think about that spot you’re in,” he said, “but I mean, every shot matters.”
The name of the game for Koivun has been tuning out the pressure, and he had to dig particularly deep when he started his third round with a bogey after spraying his drive into the right rough. But the resilience he’s already displayed in his short professional career went on full display again, as he spent the next 17 holes making five birdies and no bogeys to fight his way inside the top 20.
Koivun isn’t the only one who has improved his position at the Wyndham, and in fact, two others have fought their way inside the bubble over the last three days in Greensboro, N.C., and they happen to be the two guys tied at the top of the leaderboard.
At 16 under following a Saturday 68, Beau Hossler has a chance to make an enormous leap. He’s vaulted 68 spots in the projected standings—projected will be a key word in all of this—from 122nd to 54th. Not only would a win get him into the playoffs, but he’d be just four spots away from making the BMW Championship and, even more importantly, a spot in every 2027 signature event. That’s a nice prize normally, but in a year when players will be fighting to make the Championship Series under 2028’s new format, it’s more critical than ever.
Michael Brennan, who won his maiden PGA Tour event last fall, is in a similar boat. He’s the co-leader with Hossler after shooting a 63 on Saturday, and his projected playoff standing rose from 105th to 47th—enough to see him on to Memphis and next week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship and beyond … if he can finish strong.
For both Hossler and Brennan, though, that’s a big “if.” On the surface, their positions might look better than Koivun’s, but the truth is that the huge projected gains depend on them either at or near the top of the leaderboard. In other words, Koivun can mostly coast on Sunday, but Hossler and Brennan have no margin for error—even slipping one or two spots could send them spiraling outside the playoff bubble. And some slippage is inevitable; only one of them can win.
“I saw on the board projected with a win I would move to 47, which would be inside 50 and give me a good chance at staying there the following week,” Brennan said after his round, just before chastising himself. “See, I’m already starting to think ahead to the BMW and that’s a problem. We still have so much golf to play tomorrow.”
When players move inside the playoff bubble in the final event, the inevitable counterbalance is that an equal number of players must fall out. On Saturday night, the two men staring down that fate are Matti Schmid and Steven Fisk, who began the week at 67th and 69th, respectively, and are now the first two below the cutoff. The good news for Schmid is that he made the cut, and despite his 75 on Saturday, he can still help himself on Sunday. Fisk isn’t so lucky; he missed the cut and will have to hope Brennan and Hossler stumble.
There’s another wrinkle here, too, and the wrinkle’s name is Davis Thompson. He’s sitting in sixth place in the tournament, and 73rd in the playoff standings. He made an albatross on the fifth hole and closed out the front nine in 30 before coming in even on a back nine that included a cracked driver. Sunday, he has a chance to fight his way into the playoffs, but he’ll have to improve his position, and there’s not much more room to do it.
“I think the mindset is try to go win the golf tournament,” Thompson said. “It’s hard not to think about it. It’s a mental battle not to think about it. It’s my fourth year on tour and two of the three years I’ve been right on the bubble, so I’ve got experience with it. Hopefully I can draw on those experiences and just go execute good golf shots and just commit to my reads and just really be mentally tough out there.”
Should he succeed, it will bring some nerves into the mix for Ricky Castillo, the current projected 70th-place bubble boy, who sits at five under, and Aldrich Potgieter, projected 69th, who missed the cut.
It’s a lot to keep track of, and it ensures that on Sunday, the Wyndham will do what it always does—bring us one of the most exciting final round roller coasters of the year, with heartbreak and triumph doled out in equal and opposite measures.
