As has been the case since the start of the FedExCup era, this week's Wyndham Championship will mark the end of the PGA Tour regular season. But unlike in previous years—where the top 125 advanced to the postseason—only the top 70 on the FedExCup (FEC) points list will qualify for the 2023 playoffs.

This change, combined with the fact that FEC points are awarded disproportionately towards high finishes (500 points for 1st, 110 for 5th, 75 for 10th, 45 for 20th, etc.), means that some big names—who haven't played that poorly—find themselves in need of a big week just to keep their seasons alive.

Here are a few notable players currently outside the top 70, along with some basic stats on their 2023 seasons:

76. Shane Lowry: +60.2 cumulative strokes-gained (39th best), 9 top-25s, best finish: T5
79. Justin Thomas: +39.8 (60th), 9, solo-4th
81. Adam Scott: +53.8 (48th), 5, T5
97. Gary Woodland: +50.9 (58th), 6, T9

Hideki Matsuyama, while safely inside the top 70, is only ranked 56th—outside the top-50 cutoff to get guaranteed starts in the 2024 designated events. Like the players listed above, Matsuyama has played much better than his FEC rank indicates, he's just missing that elusive high finish. Here's what Hideki's season has looked like: +86.8 strokes-gained (21st), 10 top-25s, best finish: solo-5th at The Players.

The smaller field size for the FEC playoffs, and the introduction of an even stricter cutoff for designated event qualification, has highlighted the importance of capitalizing on good weeks and turning them into great ones—Exhibit A: Straka, Sepp (15th in FEC, 56th in cumulative SG).

*You can see the full FEC standings and strokes-gained rankings here.

Hodges Goes Ham

Lee Hodges did his best Brian Harman impression last week at the 3M Open, winning by 7 strokes (aided by a JT Poston triple on the final hole). Using the 3 entertainment-value metrics we introduced in last week’s newsletter, the 3M ranked as the 2nd least-entertaining tournament since 2019, behind only Nate Lashley’s blowout at the 2019 Rocket Mortgage. The full entertainment scorecard for the 3M Open looked like this: 9th percentile in Excitement, 1st percentile in Volatility, and 16th percentile in Star Power.

You can read about the details behind these new metrics in our latest blog post.

Rankings Update

Top 10 (see all)
Player	DG		OWGR
Scottie Scheffler	1	—	1	—
Rory McIlroy	2	—	2	—
Jon Rahm	3	—	3	—
Xander Schauffele	4	—	6	—
Patrick Cantlay	5	—	4	—
Tyrrell Hatton	6	—	14	1
Viktor Hovland	7	—	5	—
Cameron Smith	8	—	8	—
Rickie Fowler	9	—	25	1
Collin Morikawa	10	—	23	—
Notables
Tony Finau	16	4	17	2
Adam Scott	31	—	39	—
Shane Lowry	35	1	30	1
J.T. Poston	37	8	42	9
Lee Hodges	60	41	54	56
Gary Woodland	69	22	72	—
Justin Thomas	71	8	26	2
Adrien DdC	86	4	229	21
Patrick Fishburn	176	40	261	118
Trace Crowe	447	—	—	—

Player Feature

Adrien Dumont de Chassart

age 23 yrs, 4 months

dg rank 86th — owgr rank 229th

weeks in dg top 100 3

dg skill +0.44 strokes-gained / round¹

style above-average distance and accuracy (based on limited data)

career wins
Korn Ferry Tour: 1
Amateur: 12

player comps
2016 J.T. Poston (similarity score²: 97.3)
2016 Thomas Detry (95.9)
2020 Brandon Wu (91.5)

Letzig's Insight
Dumont de Chassart (DdC) has started his professional career in impressive fashion, finishing in the top 10 in his first 6 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour. This recent form has given him an outside chance at a spot on the European Ryder Cup team, and generated a good amount of hype around his career prospects. But it’s important to be realistic when evaluating young talent: DdC’s top player comps are all solid PGA Tour players, but far from world-beaters. Most of the game’s current elite were top 50 players or better by the age of 23; DdC is currently ranked 86th.

1 Relative to an average PGA Tour field.

2 Similarity scores are uniformly distributed from 0 (least similar) to 100 (most similar). Similarity is based on overall skill and playing style over the previous 3 seasons and a measure of career-long performance. Comps are restricted to players of the same age.