The 2024 season of the PGA Tour comes to an end. The Seaside Course at the Sea Island Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Georgia, hosts this week, from Thursday to Sunday, the The RSM Classic, the last counting tournament of the season where a good handful of players are playing everything on one card, the access to the first two designated events of 2025 for the most privileged of this group and the full playing rights for the next season for those living with the rope around their necks, sportingly speaking.
Players finishing in the top 125 of the FedEx Fall standings after this event will retain the status that allows them to compete in all regular tour tournaments next year. And those finishing between positions 51 and 60 will have the additional prize of a spot in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at the end of January and the The Genesis Invitational in mid-February, which offer more points and money as part of the so-called ‘Signature Events’.
Of those fighting for these 10 spots, seven players positioned between places 51 and 60 before the tournament starts (Maverick McNealy, Patrick Rodgers, Harris English, Seamus Power, Ben Griffin, and Nico Echavarria) and seven of their closest pursuers (Kevin Yu, Lucas Glover, Mark Hubbard, Jake Knapp, Taylor Moore, Justin Lower, and Andrew Novak) will be in the field with their cards secured, but with the challenge of stepping up their situation on the tour.
They will star in one of the most interesting battles of a week in which nine winners from the 14 previous editions of the tournament will make an appearance: Tommy Gainey (2012), Chris Kirk (2013), Robert Streb (2014 and 2020), Kevin Kisner (2015), Mackenzie Hughes (2016), Austin Cook (2017), Tyler Duncan (2019), Adam Svensson (2022), and Ludvig Åberg (2023), the highest-ranked player in the tournament (world number 5), ahead of Brian Harman (24th).
The Norwegian’s battle, with three second places this season (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Masters Tournament, BMW Championship) and competing for the first time on the tour since the TOUR Championship in Atlanta last August, is possibly for the victory, along with the seven winners of the autumn calendar circuit tournaments, present in Georgia: Patton Kizzire (Procore Championship), Kevin Yu (Sanderson Farms Championship), Matt McCarty (Black Desert Championship), J.T. Poston (Shriners Children’s Open), Nico Echavarria (ZOZO Championship), Austin Eckroat (World Wide Technology Championship), and Rafael Campos (Butterfield Bermuda Championship).
The Puerto Rican experienced seven unforgettable days last week, with the birth of his first daughter on Monday and his victory in Bermuda on Sunday. His was the biggest climb in the circuit standings, moving from 147th to 80th. But he wasn’t the only player who took advantage of the visit to the Atlantic islands to break into the top 125. Sam Ryder (from 135th to 122nd) and Wesley Bryan (from 128th to 125th) also did.
They will be two of the players trying to defend their position within the top 125 of the cards, against names like Henrik Norlander (who fell from 122nd to 126th), Daniel Berger (from 124th to 127th), or Hayden Springer (from 125th to 128th). A fierce battle in which the ‘winners’ will have exemption for all ‘full-field’ events of 2025 and THE PLAYERS, while the ‘losers’, from 126th to 150th, will have full playing rights for the Korn Ferry Tour and a conditional status for the PGA Tour.
Other names to watch this week in this RSM Classic include Steven Fisk, a native and resident of Georgia, who will debut on the tour with a sponsor’s invitation, but whom we will see regularly next season as he has secured his card as the fourth overall in the Korn Ferry Tour; Ben Griffin, who resides in St. Simons Island, where the tournament is held, and who arrives within the Aon Next 10 (56th place), provisionally in the first two designated events of 2025; Brian Harman, who also resides in the host city and returns after the Presidents; Chris Kirk, who along with Zach Johnson has played all editions of the tournament since 2010; Davis Love III, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame who will play his 791st tournament on the PGA Tour; or Davis Thompson, 34th in the FedEx and son of the tournament director, Todd Thompson.
