With the Wyndham Championship now in the rearview, it’s time to begin the 2026 FedEx Cup playoffs in Memphis. But plenty of star players failed to qualify for this week’s playoff opener.
Only the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings at the end of the Wyndham qualified for the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, which starts on Thursday. Everyone else is out of luck and forced to wait until the FedEx Fall events to try to improve their Tour status for next season.
Among the players who will miss the FedEx Cup playoffs are a five-time major winner, a U.S. Ryder Cup captain, a pro who has long been a playoff fixture and even one player who won a PGA Tour event just one month ago.
Surprising players who didn’t make 2026 PGA Tour playoffs
The following PGA Tour players, ranked in no particular order, will miss the 2026 FedEx Cup playoffs after failing to move into the top 70 at the Wyndham Championship.
Brooks Koepka
Brooks Koepka’s surprise return to the PGA Tour was one of the biggest stories of the year. The five-time major champion and former LIV Golf pro launched a comeback in January via the short-lived Returning Member Program.
Koepka, however, was not granted any favors competitively. If he wanted to play in Signature Events, or advance to the playoffs, he’d need to play his way in. But Koepka’s season never really got off the ground. Following a T9-finish in his third start at the Cognizant Classic, Koepka failed to capture another top 10 despite earning six top 25s.
He entered last week’s Wyndham Championship at 86th in the standings, but his T67 finish only saw his ranking plunge further to 94th.
Koepka was unflinching when critiquing his own performance after the final round of the Wyndham, saying, “I think it’s pretty pathetic that I can’t get through. Zero top-10s basically in two years. To be in the prime of your career and be as good as I think I am, I think that’s very pathetic, disappointing. Just need to go home and completely reevaluate everything.”
Keegan Bradley
Last season, Keegan Bradley had a career rebound, winning the Travelers Championship and easily qualifying for the FedEx Cup playoffs. He performed well in the playoffs, too, eventually finishing T7 at the Tour Championship.
But, perhaps influenced by his devastating loss as captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team last fall, Bradley couldn’t repeat his heroics in 2026. He did not earn a single top-10 finish all season long.
Despite that, he was ranked 72nd heading into the Wyndham with a realistic chance to qualify for the playoffs. But a T49th over the weekend saw him drop to 74th in the rankings, thereby causing him to miss the playoffs by four spots.
Jason Day
Jason Day, the 13-time Tour winner and 2015 PGA champion, has struggled with injuries for years. Those injuries did not stop him from qualifying for the first two playoff events last season (he finished 41st).
This season, however, was a different story. Day finished runner-up behind Scottie Scheffler at the American Express in January, but that would be one of only two top 10s all year.
He missed the cut in three of his last five starts, including at the Wyndham Championship, as his injuries flared up, eventually falling to 82nd to miss the playoffs.
Tony Finau
In his long career on the PGA Tour, Tony Finau had never missed the FedEx Cup playoffs, having at least qualified for the first event every season.
Not so this year. The six-time winner only managed one top 10 in 2026. In his final three starts of the regular season, he went MC-T71-T61 to fall all the way down to 98th in the FedEx Cup standings, ending his season early.
Billy Horschel
Thirty-nine-year-old Billy Horschel has won eight Tour events in his career. What was arguably his biggest win came in 2014, when he went on a run to win the FedEx Cup.
But for the second year in a row, Horschel won’t even get the chance this season. After missing the playoffs last season while struggling with injury, Horschel wasn’t much better in 2026 (he gave himself a harsh grade for his season last week: “it’s an F”).
Entering the Wyndham, Horschel was ranked 107th in the standings and needed a win to advance. He put up a valiant effort, but ultimately ended up T12, which was only good enough to improve his ranking to 100th.
Joel Dahmen
Joel Dahmen remains one of the more popular players on the PGA Tour. That makes his long streak of poor play that much more painful. For the fifth season in a row, Dahmen failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs.
While Dahmen did earn two top-10 finishes this season, he missed nine cuts. He finished the Wyndham Championship at 121st in the standings.
Steven Fisk
While Steven Fisk is not exactly a PGA Tour star, his absence from the playoffs is shocking for one reason: he won a PGA Tour event this season.
In mid-July, as the Tour’s best were battling at the Open Championship, Fisk went out and won the ISCO Championship, triumphing in a playoff. Fisk’s victory, the second of his career, vaulted him from 99th to 60th in the FedEx Cup standings.
But Fisk ended the season on a series of low notes. Following his victory, Fisk missed the cut in the final three starts of his season, including at the Wyndham Championship, to fall to 71st in the FedEx Cup standings. That makes Fisk the official bubble boy of this year’s playoffs.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login