Sepp Straka cleaned up on this 12 months’s signature occasions.
In eight begins within the Tour’s profitable and unique sequence, Straka notched three top-10s and only one missed reduce whereas incomes roughly 1,046.5 of the 1,409.594 FedExCup factors he’s earned this season. He sits comfortably at No. 17 in factors, nicely inside the highest 50 cutoff for subsequent 12 months’s signature occasions.
It’s not foolproof, however competing in all of the signature tournaments is a large benefit to staying in them. Take into account that 35 top-50 guys from final season are within the present high 50, a number of greater than the PGA Tour projected. And even these new faces churning in embrace greater than a half dozen gamers, like Justin Thomas and Ludvig Åberg, who have been in most if not all of the signature fields. Plus, eight further top-50 gamers are inside the highest 70, together with six who’re competing on this week’s John Deere Basic – Eric Cole (55), Jordan Spieth (58), Seamus Energy (64), Lee Hodges (66), Adam Schenk (67), Brendon Todd (69).
In different phrases, for those who didn’t capitalize on inflated purses and restricted to no cuts on the signature occasions, which have been usually solely open to the top-50 guys and about 20 different Tour members this season, you possibly can nonetheless play rather a lot these subsequent few weeks to retain your top-50 standing.
Everybody else – like Chris Gotterup, who received a match this season and is the second highest-ranked Korn Ferry Tour graduate in factors however continues to be No. 84 – is simply attempting to get out from behind the 8-ball over these subsequent few weeks, which can nonetheless embrace two tournaments – Genesis Scottish Open and The Open – that many of the rank-and-file received’t be capable to get into; they’ll play two opposite-field occasions as a substitute, the place the winner will get lower than half the factors because the winners of the 2 aforementioned tournaments.
Straka doubtless isn’t too fearful about staying within the high 50; he’s right here at TPC Deere Run to defend his title from final 12 months. However Straka nonetheless has his opinions on the Tour’s new signature mannequin – and it’s in all probability not the take you’d anticipate from somebody snuggled safely within the signature safety blanket.
“I personally don’t just like the small occasions,” Straka mentioned. “I simply assume it’s much less aggressive. If you get 140 one thing guys, it’s all the time a more durable surroundings. With a reduce you form of should be prepared on Thursday when the bell rings. The larger tournaments needs to be greater fields as nicely, I feel. However, yeah, these tournaments are large as a result of plenty of the blokes, many of the guys, aren’t getting in these small-field, huge occasions.
“So, for almost all of the PGA Tour these tournaments are large.”
Maybe no extra essential than for the Korn Ferry Tour and Q-Faculty graduates, who even struggled to get into some non-signature occasions within the first few months of the season.
Simply 11 of these 35 gamers are at present ranked inside the highest 125 in factors.
The remainder are in place to lose their jobs.
