Tour Championship 2026 Field: FedExCup Top 30, Format, Prize Money & Qualifiers
- The field is the top 30 in the FedExCup standings that closed at the BMW Championship on 23 August, and the tournament runs 27 to 30 August at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Starting strokes are gone: all 30 players begin the week on level terms.
- The bonus money is already spent. $97,875,000 was distributed across 125 positions on those closing standings, so Scottie Scheffler banked $23,000,000 for the season before East Lake was played.
- That bonus pool is not all cash. $67,175,000 of it is paid in cash and $30,700,000 is deferred; from 51st place down, the entire award is deferred and there is no cash column at all.
- What is still live is a $40,000,000 purse. First place at East Lake takes $10,000,000 and 30th takes $355,000, and the winner is credited with an official PGA Tour victory and a five-year exemption.
- Three players changed the field at the BMW and they displaced exactly the three who held the last three places: Gary Woodland, Patrick Cantlay and Robert MacIntyre in; Kurt Kitayama, Bud Cauley and Rickie Fowler out.
The 2026 Tour Championship field is set, and the largest cheques of the FedExCup season have already been written. The top 30 was decided when the BMW Championship finished on 23 August, and on those closing standings the PGA Tour distributed $97,875,000 in FedExCup bonus money. What is left for East Lake is a $40,000,000 purse and a straight 72-hole tournament in which all 30 players start level.
That last detail still catches people out. Starting strokes — the staggered head start that used to hand the points leader a two-shot advantage before anyone teed off — were abolished for the 2025 season. Scottie Scheffler ends the points season 1,523 clear of second place. On Thursday morning that lead is worth nothing.
Who qualified for the 2026 Tour Championship?
The 30 players who sat top of the FedExCup standings when the BMW Championship ended. The playoffs narrow the field in three steps: 70 players at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, 50 at the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, and 30 at East Lake.
| # | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | 4,986 |
| 2 | Matt Fitzpatrick | 3,463 |
| 3 | Wyndham Clark | 3,292 |
| 4 | Cameron Young | 3,206 |
| 5 | Si Woo Kim | 2,729 |
| 6 | Chris Gotterup | 2,588 |
| 7 | Collin Morikawa | 2,542 |
| 8 | Sam Burns | 2,453 |
| 9 | Tommy Fleetwood | 2,263 |
| 10 | Ludvig Åberg | 2,198 |
| 11 | Rory McIlroy | 2,095 |
| 12 | Xander Schauffele | 2,025 |
| 13 | Jacob Bridgeman | 1,961 |
| 14 | Russell Henley | 1,853 |
| 15 | Akshay Bhatia | 1,842 |
| 16 | Hideki Matsuyama | 1,637 |
| 17 | Ryan Gerard | 1,608 |
| 18 | Gary Woodland | 1,556 |
| 19 | Patrick Cantlay | 1,529 |
| 20 | Kristoffer Reitan | 1,523 |
| 21 | Min Woo Lee | 1,496 |
| 22 | J.J. Spaun | 1,464 |
| 23 | Alex Smalley | 1,443 |
| 24 | Alex Fitzpatrick | 1,434 |
| 25 | Robert MacIntyre | 1,428 |
| 26 | Viktor Hovland | 1,425 |
| 27 | Justin Rose | 1,405 |
| 28 | Adam Scott | 1,383 |
| 29 | Tom Kim | 1,378 |
| 30 | Ryan Fox | 1,368 |
Who missed the top 30, and by how much?
Kurt Kitayama, by 65 points. He finished the points season on 1,303 against Ryan Fox’s 1,368 in 30th. Behind him, J.T. Poston (1,287), Rickie Fowler (1,281) and Bud Cauley (1,276) were all within 100 points of the last qualifying place.
The chart above shows why that margin is so cruel. From roughly 18th place down the bars are almost indistinguishable, spanning barely 200 points from 18th to 30th. A single good week anywhere in that band moves a player across the line, and three of them proved it at the BMW.
Which players played their way into the field at the BMW Championship?
Three, and between them they displaced exactly the three men who had been holding the last three qualifying places. Gary Woodland moved from 31st to 18th, Patrick Cantlay from 43rd to 19th and Robert MacIntyre from 36th to 25th. Out went Kitayama, who had been 28th, Cauley from 29th and Fowler from 30th.
Cantlay’s 24-place climb is the largest move into the field, and it takes the 2021 FedExCup champion to East Lake from a position that looked out of reach a week earlier.
When and where is the 2026 Tour Championship?
27 to 30 August 2026 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the third and final event of the FedExCup Playoffs. Tommy Fleetwood is the defending champion, having won the 2025 title; he is ninth in this year’s standings on 2,263 points and back in the field.
Tickets are sold through the tournament’s own site rather than the Tour’s central box office. The recent roll of FedExCup champions is a useful measure of what the week is worth: Patrick Cantlay took the 2021 title, Viktor Hovland the 2023, Scheffler the 2024 and Fleetwood the 2025 — and all four of them are in this year’s 30.
How does the Tour Championship format work now that starting strokes are gone?
It is an ordinary 72-hole stroke-play tournament. Every player in the field begins on level par, four rounds are played, and the lowest total wins. There is no cut, because the field is only 30 players, and no points are on offer, because the BMW Championship was the last event of the season to award them.
The old system worked differently: the FedExCup leader began the week at 10 under par, second place at eight under, and so on down the field, so the season’s points leader arrived with a lead already on the board. The Tour removed that for 2025 and replaced it with the bonus pool, which rewards the season on the standings instead of on the scoreboard.
Does winning at East Lake make you the FedExCup champion?
Yes. The player who wins this tournament is the FedExCup champion, and the two are now the same thing. The winner is credited with an official PGA Tour victory, receives a five-year Tour exemption, and takes $10,000,000 — which is the first-place share of the $40,000,000 purse, not a separate payment on top of it.
That is the trade the new format makes. Season-long form is paid in bonus money before the tournament starts; the trophy is decided by four rounds in which everyone is equal.
How much is the 2026 Tour Championship purse?
$40,000,000, running from $10,000,000 for the winner down to $355,000 for 30th place. It is Official Money, which means it counts towards a player’s career earnings, and the Tour states plainly that it is separate from the FedExCup bonus pool.
The table below sets the purse beside the bonus already paid at the same position. Read the two columns carefully, because they are earned on different orderings: the bonus went on where a player finished in the standings on 23 August, while the purse goes on where they finish at East Lake.
| Pos | Purse | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10,000,000 | $23,000,000 |
| 2 | $5,000,000 | $13,000,000 |
| 3 | $3,750,000 | $8,000,000 |
| 5 | $2,550,000 | $5,400,000 |
| 10 | $745,000 | $1,310,000 |
| 20 | $445,000 | $610,000 |
| 30 | $355,000 | $460,000 |
How much FedExCup bonus money was paid before East Lake?
$97,875,000, spread across 125 positions. Scheffler’s first place is worth $23,000,000 of that, and it was settled the moment the BMW Championship ended. Thirtieth place in the standings collects $460,000, which is more than 30th place at East Lake will pay.
The pool is not all cash. $67,175,000 of it is paid out in cash and $30,700,000 is deferred compensation, and the balance shifts sharply down the list: first place takes $22,000,000 in cash against $1,000,000 deferred, while 30th takes $215,000 in cash against $245,000 deferred. From 51st place down there is no cash at all — the entire award is deferred.
So the money that decides the season has mostly been decided. What East Lake settles is the trophy, an official win, and a $40,000,000 purse that everyone starts the week with an equal claim on.