The PGA TOUR has reached the FedExCup playoffs, which begin this week with the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The St. Jude Championship has been the first event in the playoffs since 2007, and in 2022, it moved to its current location at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee. The top 70 players in the FedExCup Standings from this season qualify for the event, with the top 50 advancing to next week’s BMW Championship, which is the second of three events in the playoffs. The tournament tees off on Thursday, August 13, and will conclude on Sunday, August 16, weather permitting.
Let’s start the week with a look at the format, history, and course for the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
The Format of the FedEx St. Jude Championship
This week’s tournament features an elite field of 770 players and will not have a cut. Barring withdrawal or disqualification, all 70 players will play four rounds at TPC Southwind with the lowest aggregate score from the four rounds claiming the victory.
At the end of the event, the top 50 in the FedExCup Standings will qualify for the BMW Championship at the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri. The top 50 also secure invites to all the Signature Events in 2027, which will be critical to earning status on the Championship Series of the PGA TOUR when it debuts in 2028.
Since it is the playoffs, players will earn more FedExCup Points than at a standard event this week, with the winner claiming 750 points. The winner will also claim $3.6 million as the top prize of a total purse of $20 million.
The History of the Tournament
The FedEx St. Jude Championship began as the Westchester Classic in 1967 and has had several title sponsors over the last 20 years. Since 2007, when it became the first stop in the playoffs, the tournament was The Barclays and The Northern Trust until 2022, when FedEx came on board as the title sponsor, making the event the FedEx St. Jude Championship. Historically, the event used a course in the New York area until 2022, when it moved to Memphis, near the headquarters of FedEx.
In 2022, Will Zalatoris won the first FedEx St. Jude Championship in a playoff over Sepp Straka. In 2023, the field shrank from the top 125 in the FedExCup Standings to just the top 70 as the format of the postseason changed. Lucas Glover defeated Patrick Cantlay in a playoff to claim the title that year, and Hideki Matsuyama won by two strokes in 2024. Last year, Justin Rose needed a playoff to claim the win over J.J. Spaun.
The future of this event is unclear beyond next season as the PGA TOUR looks to overhaul the 2028 schedule and introduce the Championship Series and the Challenger Series. The PGA TOUR has confirmed that the event will not be part of the Championship Series, but since Memphis has hosted an event of some kind since 1958, it would seem to make sense as one of the potential stops on the second-tier Challenger Series.
The PGA TOUR is rethinking the way the playoffs work with match play and other options for the postseason on the table, so it appears that the FedEx St. Jude Championship will only exist in this form for this year and next year.
The field for what could be the penultimate St. Jude Championship is an extremely strong one, with 69 of the top 70 golfers in the standings ready to tee it up this week. Daniel Berger is the only qualified player not committed to play, with big names Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Cameron Young, and reigning FedExCup Champion Tommy Fleetwood leading the way.
Justin Rose will be back for his title defense, and the young wave of golfers who have won the last three events are also in the field, with Jackson Koivun, Michael Brennan and Michael Thorbjornsen each looking to build on their recent victory and make a deep run in the playoffs.
Be sure to check out this week’s full field and opening odds on DraftKings Sportsbook.
A Closer Look at the Course
TPC Southwind has hosted a PGA TOUR event since 1989, and was the home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic from 1989 to 2018. In 2019, FedEx moved the WGC Invitational to Memphis, and in 2022, when the WGC Invitational ended, the current event shifted to the course.
The Ron Prichard design is a solid par-70 course that was converted from a dairy farm to the current layout which winds through the hills in the farmland just southeast of Memphis.
The course setup has lived up to its reputation as a ball-strikers’ paradise through the years, and players who excel on approach and can get hot putting on Bermuda greens typically perform well. Most proven players have long track records at this course, and who played well in the past is an important factor this week. The rough is typically thick and penalizing, with plenty of water in play as well if drives or approaches wander off line. While it is a TPC course, it usually plays as one of the hardest in that network that is part of the regular rotation.
The official site of the FedEx St. Jude Championship has a great hole-by-hole walkthrough to help familiarize yourself with what the course looks like and some of the challenges players will face.
TPC Southwind has plenty of water in play with multiple lakes, streams and ponds putting water directly in play on 11 of the 18 holes. Over the last several years, TPC Southwind has produced the most “water balls” on the PGA TOUR by a wide margin. Accuracy off the tee and close approaches to small greens, which were all new just before last year’s tournament.
In general, Strokes Gained: Approach is the top metric to lean on this week, as is typical. Accuracy driving will also be critical, along with a good short game on and around the Bermuda putting surfaces. Since it is a Par-70, scoring well on par 4s will be important since there will only be two par 5s to take advantage of in each round.
As you get ready for this week’s tournament, be sure to get your DFS fantasy golf lineups and betting cards filled out with help from DK Network! We’ll have ongoing coverage throughout the week to help you enjoy this weekend’s tournament.