Seamus Power sits in a precarious position as he gets set for the Wyndham Championship, the final event of the regular PGA Tour season, and the man ranked 68th in the FedEx Cup standings needs a good week to secure his place in next week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship with the top 70 advancing.
It’s been a rare season for the Waterford man, who’s made 20 PGA Tour starts in 2024, but failed to register a single top-10 with a T12 finish at the RBC Heritage – a PGA Tour Signature Event – his best result. He’s only missed five cuts, however, meaning that consistency rather than rarified brilliance has been the story to date.
It’s a week where his fate is in his own hands and, barring an unlikely leaderboard where those ranked below him all feature towards the top of the leaderboard, a top-25 finish should be enough to see him head for Memphis. But that’s where the action heats up, and being inside the top-50 in the rankings at the completion of the FedEx St. Jude will see him secure his place in the 2026 Signature Events.
Just below him in the rankings are Brendon Todd at 69th and Victor Perez at 70th, and the Frenchman arrives off the back of an inspirational if exhausting week at Le Golf National where, buoyed on by the home crowd, he had a good run at getting into the medals with a back-nine 29 on Sunday.
Davis Riley, Andrew Putnam, Kurt Kitayama, Luke List and Lucas Glover are all ranked 71st to 75th respectively, and the latter is the defending champion so will fancy his chances at climbing inside the cut off mark this week.
Just ahead of Power in the rankings are an interesting ensemble that includes the Tour’s most recent winner in Jhonnatan Vegas at 66th, two-time season winner Nick Dunlap – only the second victory carried FedEx Cup points because he was still an amateur when he won the AmEx back in January – at 65th, and Jordan Spieth at 62nd. Spieth is unlikely to slip eight places, but as a fan and media darling, failing to get inside the top 50 after next week will mean he’ll likely eat up sponsors’ invites for 2025’s Signature Events.
This will be Power’s fifth time appearing at Sedgefield Country Club, missing the cut on debut in 2018, and with a best finish of 27th in 2020, but he hasn’t been back since 2021.
Shane Lowry is also in the field, and the Offaly man has no such advancement worries as he lies 10th in the rankings. He does, however, have a Comcast Business Tour top-10 placing to protect, which carried with it a monetary bonus. Akshay Bhatia, Robert MacIntyre, Brian Harman and Christian Bezuidenhout all have the mathematical potential to oust him from the top 10 this week, but despite the frustrations of his scorecards not matching his play in Paris, he’ll fancy his chances of getting a first individual PGA Tour win since becoming a major champion back in 2019.
This will be Lowry’s seventh appearance at Sedgefield, and he’s seen weekend action on six occasions, with a T7 in 2017 his best showing at the course.
Approach play has been Lowry’s ace in the pack this year, consistently ranking among the best in the field in the tournaments he’s played and the equation has been fairly simple; if he putts well, he scores well.
As he’s often said, it’s not that he likes wind and rain, but he’s usually able to handle the conditions better than most and with thunderstorms and gusts forecast for both Thursday and Friday, he’ll be aiming to be among the leaders after 36 holes and to push on over the weekend.
Lowry will be among the featured groups on PGA Tour Live’s early coverage on Thursday when he plays alongside fellow Top-10 contender Akshay Bhatia and Korean Sungjae Im, getting underway at 12:34 Irish time, while Power is among the late starters and joins Adam Svensson and big-hitting Cameron Champ at 18:27.
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