The PGA Tour postseason started Thursday with a $20 million tournament, a 69-man field, and a sense of urgency for about half of the players at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
One of those players was Jordan Spieth, who earned his 14th straight appearance in the PGA Tour postseason despite recording zero top-10 finishes.
Needing a strong finish in Memphis, Tenn. after finishing No. 54 in the FedEx Cup standings, Spieth came out firing in his opening round.
Spieth had four finishes in the top 12 this season, including the Masters and two signature events. Those four top 12s — the other was a tie for 11th in the Valspar Championship — accounted for 52% of his FedEx Cup points.
He played in all eight signature events this year, but he received only two exemptions — Bay Hill (tie for 11th worth 125 points) and the Travelers Championship (tie for 66th worth seven points). Take out those two sponsor exemptions and Spieth would have finished at No. 64 and still qualified for the FedEx Cup playoffs.
And now he has to move into the top 50 after the first playoff event to reach the BMW Championship, which would get him into all the signature events next year.
Spieth, meanwhile, hasn’t made it to the Tour Championship since 2023. Odds are he will need his first top 10 of the year to get there.
Other Dallas-area players either at or under par as the early tee times began to finish their rounds included Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Chris Gotterup and Tom Kim.
More updates to come on this story. The Associated Press contributed to this post.