Winners, losers from FedEx Cup Fall 2025: U.S. Ryder Cup team's presence, Jordan Spieth's absence notable

The conclusion of FedEx Cup Fall always feels a little ... off. Players arrive in St. Simon's Island, Georgia -- a laidback seaside island in the Lowcountry -- for the final event of the season with vibes (as the kids say) high and stakes even higher.

The juxtaposition between the two is stark. The easygoing nature of the area hides the nerves and jitters of those in the field -- up until Sunday, when everyone, players and fans alike, knows exactly what needs to happen for a golfer to jump into a new echelon of class on the PGA Tour or maintain his current positioning. 

At least, that should be the case. It doesn't always work that way, which is among the issues FedEx Cup Fall consistently faces.

"Competition should be easy to follow," PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said at the Tour Championship. "The regular season and postseason should be connected in a way that builds towards a Tour Championship in a way that all sports fans can understand."

While the Tour's new headman was referencing the regular season and postseason, the same sentiment holds weight for the fall swing. A couple of cut-off points are highlighted -- the Aon Next 10 and the top 100, which gain full-time status -- but the nuances from beyond the magic number are not. It adds confusion, a lack of clarity and misunderstanding, again, for both players and fans alike. And it needs to improve.

Not everything fell short of what this time of year should be about. That would be too pessimistic a stance. Longtime PGA Tour players and brand new faces both found the winner's circle for the first time. An unlikely tournament stop turned into one of the best viewing experiences of the entire PGA Tour season, and one event even saw an influx of interest thanks to the top Americans showing up to prepare for the Ryder Cup.

We call balls and strikes here, and we will for all of this year's FedEx Cup Fall. Winners will be praised, losers will be identified and an additional thought or two will be shared, too.

FedEx Cup Fall winners

First-timers

Changes are coming to the PGA Tour, whether you like them or not. Jump on the train or risk getting left behind on the circuit of yesteryear. Harris English referenced a change to the schedule, which would begin after the Super Bowl -- some murmurs are it will actually begin the same week at the WM Phoenix Open -- and feature just about 20 tournaments.

The bottom line: The PGA Tour and what I have dubbed the PGB Tour are going to become a thing, even more than just the signature events compared to regular run-of-the-mill tournaments. A line between the best talent the Tour has to offer and the rest of the league will be drawn.

This is why the first-time winners are likely the winners of the FedEx Cup Fall. Who knows how the intricacies of exemptions will work moving forward? Who knows how one will qualify for the main events? Who knows how all of this shakes out?

For Adam Schenk and Sami Valimaki (put Michael Brennan in a different category, given his age and supreme talent), they have secured a place on the PGA Tour through 2027. With unknowns abundant, players knowing that is invaluable.

Bermuda Championship

It was a top-five event of the entire PGA Tour season. With tee times moved up on Sunday before the start of the NFL window, the Bermuda Championship provided golf nuts with one of the best viewing experiences imaginable. The definition of a pleasant surprise.

Players faced 40 mph wind gusts, were forced to flight shots, used their imagination and held on for dear life with their livelihoods, career-changing prospects and lifelong dreams all hanging in the balance. The drama was riveting, the characters were interesting and the quality of golf was what the fall needs to see more.

Napa Valley

Although it may not have worked out for the U.S. Ryder Cup team, it did work out for the Procore Championship. With players from the 2023 squad revealing after the fact that they may not have been tournament-ready for the Ryder Cup in Rome, U.S. captain Keegan Bradley made sure that would not be the case heading into the 2025 competition at Bethpage Black.

Because of this, 11 of the 12 members of his team -- Xander Schauffele was the exception due to welcoming a newborn into the world -- teed it up in the first event of the FedEx Cup Fall. The result may have been predictable -- the best American players played the best, Scottie Scheffler won -- but it provided some early juice into the swing season.

The top-ranked amateur, Jackson Koivun, contended, while a player like Lanto Griffin, who was fighting for his card, put together the best start of his year and said the quiet part out loud when he mentioned (tongue in cheek) that he wished Scheffler was not playing.

FedEx Cup Fall losers

Jordan Spieth

If a player falls short in the regular season and postseason, he should theoretically be playing in the FedEx Cup Fall, even if that is just one tournament. Spieth felt as if he did not need to play, and ultimately, he was proven right. Beginning the fall inside the Aon Next 10, the three-time major champion fell just outside the number when Max McGreevy surpassed him thanks to his runner-up result at the RSM Classic.

The first reaction is to point out that Spieth may garner sponsors' invites, but he likely won't need them. The first signature event of 2026, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, features a field of 80 players due to the event's amateur aspect. It is filled via the season-ending FedEx Cup standings, which means Spieth will get in. He even stands as the first alternate for the Genesis Invitational.

Spieth is not a "loser" by the definition of the word. What was laid out suggests the polar opposite, actually -- he enjoyed an offseason, gained a couple of spots in some big-time tournaments and may not lose anything -- but by doing so, he exposed a flaw in the system that needs to be fixed.

Journeymen

It is hard not to look at Nos. 101 to 125 in the final FedEx Cup standings and know these players would have been safe this time last year. With the PGA Tour tightening the screws on full-time playing privileges, names like Seamus Power, Joel Dahmen and Matt Kuchar -- on the PGA Tour for many years -- will now need to look elsewhere for some playing opportunities.

It is not an end-all, be-all for these names, but the trends on the PGA Tour are simple to see. It's getting tougher every season for golfers to retain their membership.

"I'm just pretty pissed off, to be honest," Justin Lower said. "I don't really have anything else to say. Anything I seem to say or anytime I speak my mind, people tend to not like it, so I'm just not going to say a whole lot. There's a whole lot I could say about the changes and everything, but obviously in the situation I'm in, I feel threatened by that, which I totally get. I totally get the need for the changes. Do I agree with them? No. I don't think our product is that bad to where we have to blow everything up, which is what it seems like. But obviously, I had a shitty year. I mean, I missed a lot of cuts, I missed a lot of cuts by a shot. I shot 27 over at the U.S. Open for two days. 

"Like, did I have my best stuff this year? Absolutely not. But I worked my ass off this fall, and to come up this short, it sucks. ... But it just really sucks, the situation that I'm in and the situation other guys are in. I just, I don't like the direction the Tour's going."

Notable names ranked Nos. 101-125 in FedEx Cup

Simplicity 

If one had tuned in to the broadcast on Sunday, one would have assumed those players who finished outside the top 100 were done for on the PGA Tour, but that is not the case. Lee Hodges, who finished No. 101 in the FedEx Cup, will have plenty of starts next season. The same applies to Ricky Castillo, who finished at No. 102 and has a chance to improve his standing through Q-School.

"I broke my rib and had to miss, I think I missed six or seven tournaments, and they gave me four [medical starts]," Hodges said. "It is what it is. It definitely helped me a lot more, yeah. I had more starts, it wasn't my last tournament like some of these guys, which is good.

"My agents have been telling me, 'If you finish inside the top 111, you're going to really like where you are.' So 101, I guess, is all right after the shit year -- sorry, after the bad year I had this year. So yeah, it is what it is."

These two did not retain full-time status, but as Hodges and his agent pointed out, they still possess conditional status and are in a decent spot heading into 2026. Those ranked Nos. 101-110 are three spots higher on the priority ranking than those who finished Nos. 111-125, which could mean the difference between getting into a couple of tournaments and not.