2023 FedEx Cup standings, schedule, PGA Tour leaderboard, prize money, purse for FedEx Cup Playoffs 2023

An exciting first leg of the 2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs is in the book as Lucas Glover downed Patrick Cantlay in a playoff to win his second straight PGA Tour event. This with Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and a host of other premier golfers breathing down Glover’s back at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis over.

The win rockets Glover all the way up to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings behind only Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy entering the final two playoff events, the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields and the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club.

The big change to the playoffs this year is the field size. Glover took down a field of 70 at TPC Southwind, and only the top 50 in the FedEx Cup advanced to the BMW Championship where only the top 30 from that tournament will move on to the Tour Championship. There’s an even bigger prize, however, as the top 50 in this year’s FedEx Cup automatically qualify for the eight small-field signature events on next year’s PGA Tour schedule.  

2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs schedule

All three events are 72-hole, stroke-play tournaments, though the fields gradually get smaller as the playoffs roll on. The points change, too, as everything is quadrupled. During regular season events, most winners receive 500 FedEx Cup points for finishing first at tournaments (in a handful of events, 600 points went to first place). The winners of the first two FedEx Cup Playoffs events will instead receive 2,000 points each. The point boost goes for every slot on the leaderboard: 300 for second becomes 1,200 and so on. 

Only four golfers — Rahm, Scheffler, McIlroy and Max Homa — surpassed the 2,000-point total during the entire regular season, which means the FedEx Cup standings can shift — and already have shifted — quite a bit. Winners are disproportionately rewarded and deservedly so given this is the postseason.

This provides the opportunity for golfers — like Glover — to go on a hot streak and rocket up the FedEx Cup standings. After not even sniffing the top 25 in the FedEx Cup standings all year, he is suddenly in the top five with two events to go. Regardless of what else happens, everyone in the top 10 of the FedEx Cup rankings will be in prime position at the Tour Championship at East Lake. Similar to other sports, now that the postseason has begun, almost anything can happen.

2023 FedEx Cup standings

There was not too much movement at the top of the standings. Part of that is because Rahm and Scheffler built a massive 1-2 lead in the regular season. It was going to be difficult to overcome that lead in the first tournament of the playoffs. There will now be more opportunity to do so at the BMW Championship if those two do not play well (Scheffler finished T31 and Rahm T37 at St. Jude).

Here’s a look at the top 30 going into the BMW Championship.

Anything can still happen at the BMW and set players up for what comes after that (see below for Tour Championship format and purse). This is an interesting list, too. You see some golfers that did the majority of their work during the regular season (Rahm, Scheffler and Hovland) and then others who really boosted decent regular season results with a monster first week in Memphis (Glover, Fleetwood, Moore and Spieth).

So it goes in the playoffs, where you have a chance to make up a ton of ground on players who have been better at golf for most of the last seven months. Where it really gets interesting is at the BMW Championship, where Scheffler and Rahm have not put distance between themselves and the rest of the the top players

2023 Tour Championship format

Heading into the Tour Championship inside the top five or top 10 in the FedEx Cup standings is important because of how scoring is dispersed. Whoever is first in the FedEx Cup standings after the BMW Championship starts the Tour Championship at 10 under, and the event is played under normal scoring conditions from there. Second starts at 8 under and so on (see full numbers below). 

With so much money at stake (again, $18 million for first place), those margins become more meaningful than even a normal week. The eventual winners of the four FedEx Cups played under this format have all started in the top seven at the Tour Championship.

• 1st: -10
• 2nd: -8
• 3rd: -7
• 4th: -6
• 5th: -5
• 6th-10th: -4
• 11th-15th: -3
• 16th-20th: -2
• 21st-25th: -1
• 26th-30th: E

2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs purse, prize money

2023 St. Jude Championship purse, prize money

• 1st: $3.6 million
• 2nd: $2.2 million
• 3rd: $1.4 million
• 4th: $960,000
• 5th: $800,000
• 6th: $720,000
• 7th: $670,000
• 8th: $620,000
• 9th: $580,000
• 10th: $540,000

2023 BMW Championship purse, prize money

2023 Tour Championship purse, prize money

The numbers are startling for the finale. The winner of the Tour Championship receive $18 million. If you just make into the final FedEx Cup Playoff event, you’re guaranteed $500,000. Here’s a look at what the lucrative top 10 will look like at the Tour Championship.

• 1st: $18 million
• 2nd: $6.5 million
• 3rd: $5 million
• 4th: $4 million
• 5th: $3 million
• 6th: $2.5 million
• 7th: $2 million
• 8th: $1.5 million
• 9th: $1.25 million
• 10th $1 million

Last year, McIlroy overcame a six-stroke deficit at the start of the week and a five-stroke deficit at the start of the final day to defeat Scheffler by one and swipe an additional $11.5 million from him in the process.