The Five: Who will pounce on opportunity at John Deere Classic?

The regular season has entered its closing stretch. Less than two months remain before the start of the FedExCup Playoffs, a crucial time as players fight for positioning.

The top 70 after the Wyndham Championship will reach the postseason, though the mile marker everyone is shooting for is the top 50, which secures Signature Event exemptions for 2027. This week’s John Deere Classic is an important piece of the puzzle, the last event before top players head overseas for the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship, while the rest of the membership remains stateside for a pair of Additional Events.

So, who could use the John Deere as a springboard? Let’s go through some options.

Ben James

James is off to a strong start in his nascent rookie campaign. Three weeks in, James has made three cuts. He was in contention after 36 holes at both the RBC Canadian Open and U.S. Open before struggling on Saturday. He was top 20 midway through the Travelers Championship, too, but faded with over-par rounds on the weekend.

The top finisher in this year’s PGA TOUR University Ranking has quickly shown he’s capable of competing and thriving on this stage. That’s a major data point. Some who have come straight from college quickly realized they weren’t ready. That’s not James, who has shown more flashes than anyone from this pathway since Ludvig Åberg. James is just working through the kinks of playing in 72-hole stroke-play tournaments. Sustaining top-level play for four full days of competition is quite different from the one- and two-day college tournaments that he dominated over the last four years.

That said, James is playing high-level golf at the moment, and John Deere could be the week he fully cements himself as a TOUR mainstay.

Eric Cole

This is a prime opportunity for Eric Cole to finally earn his first PGA TOUR win.

Nobody in the field is playing better. He heartbreakingly lost the Charles Schwab Challenge to Russell Henley after leading much of the day, then quickly put that disappointment behind him with a top-10 finish at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. He didn’t qualify for the U.S. Open but returned swiftly at the Travelers and led after the first round. He was unable to maintain that pace through the weekend, particularly on Sunday with a 73, but that’s now three consecutive tournaments in which Cole has put himself in the mix for a title.

Harry Higgs

Half the battle of surviving on the PGA TOUR is mental. Confidence breeds success, but it’s hard to amass any without results coming first. Harry Higgs spoke about that eloquently at the U.S. Open two weeks after putting himself in the thick of contention heading into the weekend.

Higgs will make his eighth start on TOUR this week. He had missed six straight cuts until his impressive performance at Shinnecock Hills. Talent isn’t the issue. Higgs carved out a consistent presence on TOUR and has repeatedly shown his level when forced to go back to the Korn Ferry Tour. He’s never there for long. This latest demotion felt different, and Higgs admitted that he questioned whether he should continue playing professionally. Then he made it through Final Qualifying and got to the U.S. Open.

“Make the choice to be simply, just confident, and believe in yourself no matter what happens,” Higgs said at Shinnecock Hills. “I need to do that in every aspect, every golf tournament. I don’t know why it came. Maybe this is just so hard that I could shrug off all the bad things that happened to me a little easier.

“But man, for the first time in a while, I thought that like, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’”

What can he do with that newfound carefree and confident attitude?

Carson Young

The John Deere Classic marks the start of a stretch in which players with conditional TOUR status will have ample opportunities to earn FedExCup points and potentially launch a late push to earn a full card. The field this week dips into that pool, as will the upcoming Additional Events: the ISCO Championship and Corales Puntacana Championship.

Carson Young profiles as the type of player who could take advantage. Young has made five cuts in seven sporadic starts on TOUR this year, but he’s found his groove on the Korn Ferry Tour. Young has four top 10s on the circuit, including four top 20s in his last five starts. That has put him on the precipice of earning his TOUR card; he is currently 21st on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List. The top 20 at the end of the fall will earn TOUR status.

Young could fast-track himself with a great performance this week. He finished in a tie for fifth at TPC Deere Run in each of the last two years.

Tom Kim

Has Tom Kim officially turned the corner? The once-burgeoning young star has had a difficult last 18 months, but the South Korean’s solo third at the U.S. Open has us wondering whether he found his stride again.

Kim’s performance at Shinnecock Hills was the product of a slow but steady buildup. He finished tied for sixth in Myrtle Beach in May, which set his comeback in motion. He made the weekend at both Texas events, then finished tied for 15th at the RBC Canadian Open before putting all the pieces together at Shinnecock Hills.