Top Wyndham Championship performances that helped reach the FedExCup Playoffs

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The Wyndham Championship, founded 80 years ago, has an impressive roster of winners that includes eight-time champion Sam Snead and Davis Love III, who won the tournament three times.

More than 30 major champions have won in Greensboro, including defending champion Henrik Stenson.

The advent of the FedExCup brought a new dimension to this tradition-rich tournament, though. The Wyndham Championship is now the final event of the PGA TOUR’s Regular Season, a tournament where the winner isn’t the only one who walks away happy.

Players come to Sedgefield Country Club with a chance to make a move into the top 125 in the FedExCup standings. Not only does that give them entry into the Playoffs, where a $10 million bonus looms, it ensures their playing privileges for another year.

Here are some of the most impressive 11th-hour performances since the FedExCup began in 2007.

2017 Martin Flores: The hole-in-one

Ranked 139th in the FedExCup, Martin Flores came to Greensboro with a tall task. Nothing short of a top-10 finish would give Flores a chance of moving into the top 125. He started the day tied for 23rd but made a move when he opened with three straight birdies and shot 30 on the front nine.

A bogey at No. 11 dropped Flores back to 12 under for the tournament, though, and when he failed to birdie the par-5 15th the Oklahoma alum was behind the eight-ball. And he knew it.

Flores responded with what might have been the shot of his career -- a nifty 8-iron at the par-3 16th that snuck into the hole. But he still needed another birdie and he got it when he poured in an 8-footer on the final hole – the hardest on the course -- that moved him into a tie for seventh.

The furious finish to the clutch round of 63 moved Flores to 118th in the FedExCup. His job was safe for another year.

“Just kept telling myself, ‘You have to make it. I don't care what you have to do, just find a way to make it,’” Flores said. “I was able to go through my process and how I've been doing the whole day and I was able to put a pure stroke on it and buried it.”

Flores fought back tears in his post-round interview with CBS. He hadn’t been to the FedExCup Playoffs since 2014 and living life on the edge had taken its toll. So it was nice to see the effort he’d put into his game pay off.

“This game will beat you down sometimes and you'll have a lot of struggles,” Flores said. “When things finally go how you envision in your mind and you see all your hard work pay off … I think the emotions really come from the sacrifices your family makes, traveling all the time or being away.”

2008, 2017 J.J. Henry

J.J. Henry is the only man to twice burst the Playoffs bubble at the Wyndham Championship. He did it nearly a decade apart.

He proved last year that every shot matters during the entire season. Henry birdied the 72nd hole to grab the final Playoffs spot by a single point over Zac Blair, who had missed the 54-hole cut. Blair’s 27th birthday fell on the Wyndham’s final round, but Henry didn’t give him reason to celebrate. That one point cost Blair a spot in THE PLAYERS Championship and his full playing privileges for 2017-18.

Henry, a three-time TOUR winner, finished T16 at Sedgefield to leap from 134th to 125th in the FedExCup standings. He was one of four players to crack the top 125 at last year’s Wyndham. A record-setting five players burst the bubble at the 2015 Wyndham.

Henry also earned a Playoffs spot at the 2008 Wyndham. He was 177th in the standings when he arrived, but he jumped 42 spots with his tie for fourth (the top 144 qualified for the Playoffs that season).

Henry birdied four of his final five holes to shoot 62 and post his first top-10 of the season and best finish since his win at the Travelers Championship more than two years earlier.

He made the cut at the first two Playoffs events to finish 92nd in the FedExCup standings, a leap of 85 spots in three weeks.

2016 Shawn Stefani

Shawn Stefani calls himself a glass half-full kind of guy, but it’s hard to be optimistic when you arrive in Greensboro ranked 133rd in the FedExCup.

He was projected to move into the all-important 125th position when the final round began, though. A 22-footer for eagle at the 15th hole helped his confidence.

He made bogey two holes later to put his card in danger, though.

Stefani responded with a stellar 7-iron from 173 yards that kicked off the fringe and settled 6 feet from the pin.

“After I hit my second shot on 18 I started getting a little emotional,” Stefani said. “My hands are shaking, I'm nervous. And actually I didn't know that until I got in the scoring tent that it was a bigger putt than I thought.”

Turns out, that birdie putt and a final round of 66 enabled Stefani to retain his card as he moved into a tie for 14th and 123rd in the FedExCup. He said later it was the first time he’d cried after a round since shooting 5 under to advance to the final stage of qualifying school in 2011.

“The game doesn't owe you anything and I feel like the game gave me something today,” Stefani said. “I wasn't a great college player. I had to earn my way the hard way, mini-tours, 15-hour drives, driving across the country and, you know, it means more to me to keep my card than it does to some of the other guys who have won because I've gone the hard road for the game.”

2015 Jason Gore

Jason Gore was just trying to keep his job when he got to Greensboro in 2015. On that Sunday at Sedgefield, though, he found himself with a chance to win for the second time on the PGA TOUR.

Gore, who started the week ranked a distant 166th in the FedExCup, entered the final round leading by two over Jonas Blixt, Scott Brown and his longtime friend, Tiger Woods.

The affable man from California was in control, too, until Davis Love III polished off a 64 to move to 17 under and take the clubhouse lead.

Consecutive bogeys at the 13th and 14th holes certainly didn’t help Gore’s cause. But he drained a 25-footer for eagle at No. 15 to pull within a shot of Love.

And it all came down to No. 18 where Gore faced a 50-footer for birdie from the front of the green. While he wanted to force a playoff, Gore -- who later said he had been “coughing fur balls and pooping pellets” – had to at least make par to keep his card.

He did, and suddenly Gore was scrambling to do laundry and book a flight to New York City for the first Playoffs event. Gore, who finished the Wyndham ranked 98th in the FedExCup, also made it to the second event in his first Playoffs appearance since 2008.

2016 Kyle Stanley

Kyle Stanley was living on the brink for the third straight year.

His exemption for winning the Waste Management Phoenix Open ran out in 2014. He missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship that year, finished 158th in the FedExCup and made an unsuccessful bid to get his card back at the Web.com Tour Finals.

The 2015 season saw Stanley split time between the PGA TOUR and the Web.com Tour. He got his card back through the Web.com Tour Finals, though, only to find himself on the outside looking in once again in 2016 when he got to the Wyndham Championship.

Stanley entered the week ranked No. 127. He shot four rounds in the 60s at Sedgefield on the way to a tie for 14th.

“(It) wasn't much fun not being able to set your schedule and playing Web events and kind of a sporadic schedule out here,” Stanley said. “I really wanted to get it done this week.”

Stanley moved 11 spots to 116th and went off to play THE NORTHERN TRUST, making his first Playoffs appearance since 2013. A year later, he was a PGA TOUR champion again after winning the Quicken Loans National and eventually making the field at East Lake.


2017 Harold Varner

Varner, an alumnus of nearby East Carolina, arrived in Greensboro last year ranked 138th in the FedExCup. He went into the final round knowing he needed a top-10 finish to secure his playing privileges and his Playoffs spot. Those were in danger after back-to-back bogeys, though.

“You don't start thinking about it until you start hitting shots where you don't want to,” he said.

A birdie at the 15th hole was followed by a bogey at the next. Varner missed a 15-footer for birdie at the 17th hole that would have given him some much-needed breathing room.

But a two-putt from 37 feet at No. 18 secured his spot as Varner tied for 10th and moved to No. 123 in the FedExCup.

“18, it was just hard,” Varner said. “That's a tough spot to be in. I don't wish that upon anyone.”

Varner tied for 20th the following Sunday at THE NORTHERN TRUST to extend his Playoffs run another week. He finished 90th in last season’s FedExCup.

2015 Davis Love III

The buzz at the 2015 Wyndham Championship was Tiger Woods, who was playing in the tournament for the first time.

Like so many others there, the former world No. 1, who was on the comeback trail after spinal surgery, needed FedExCup points.

For three rounds, Woods didn’t disappoint, starting Sunday in a tie for second, just two strokes off the lead. But he stalled, shooting an even-par 70 in the final round while his buddy, Davis Love III stole the show.

Love was coming off an injury, too, after having an operation in April to correct two dislocated toes and digital contracture in his right foot. He missed two months and came to Greensboro, where he had won twice previously, ranked 186th in the FedExCup.

When the former UNC All-American played Nos. 2-6 in 6 under on Sunday, he was in the mix. Love went on to shoot 64, capped off by a 12-footer for eagle at the 15th hole, to earn the victory, the 21st of his World Golf Hall of Fame career.

The win – his third in Greensboro -- moved Love to 76th in the FedExCup and essentially earned him two more starts in the Playoffs. The 110-point jump remains the largest move up the standings in tournament history.

“I was playing at Bay Hill thinking that I couldn't walk another step, my foot hurt so bad,” Love recalled. “I said if I'm going to make the Top 125 I've got to get this fixed and then have time to play at the end of the year.”

The Wyndham was his first win since 2008. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

2011 Ernie Els

For Ernie Els, his first appearance at the Wyndham Championship in the FedExCup era was almost like going back to Q-School.

He started the week ranked No. 126 in the FedExCup. He started the final round five back of the lead, then started the final round with bogeys at Nos. 1 and 6.

“(Then) you don't want to mess up too badly,” said Els, who’d finished in the FedExCup’s top 30 in each of the previous four seasons. “It's a terrible way to feel on the golf course because you know you want to try and contend but you also don't want to screw up.”

He thought he had to make a birdie on the final hole to move into the top 125 but as it turned out his par, his round of 2-over 72 and tie for 30th was enough.

And once he got in the Playoffs, Els knew what to do.

Els left Greensboro ranked 118th in the FedExCup. He tied for 32nd at The Barclays, 16th at the Deutsche Bank Championship and 42nd at the BMW Championship to finish the year ranked No. 68.

It remains the deepest anyone has advanced in the Playoffs when starting the Wyndham Championship ranked outside the top 125.

And he went on to win his fourth major championship, The Open, the following year.

2011 Padraig Harrington

Padraig Harrington postponed a family trip to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas to play in the 2011 Wyndham Championship. Well, actually, someone made the decision for him – and it turned out to be a prudent one.

“I think you should get up there and qualify,” Caroline Harrington told her husband, who was ranked 130th in the FedExCup.

So Harrington did, joking that only his 7-year-old would understand the change in plans. “The 3-year-old, … one swimming pool is the same to him,” Harrington said with a smile.

And truth be told, he relished the challenge. The three-time major champion now referred to himself as a “fairy-tale story”.

“Any of us guys who are slightly outside the FedExCup at the moment, if we qualify, we can go on and win the FedExCup. Anybody who is in the Top 125 has a chance of winning it outright and being the best player of the year.”


And Harrington gave himself a shot at the $10 million bonus at Sedgefield, shooting four rounds in the 60s and tying for 47th. He moved to 124th in the FedExCup to book another trip to The Barclays where he shared 13th to extend his run one more week. Harrington ended up 89th in the FedExCup.

2008 Martin Laird

Martin Laird was playing the Web.com Tour in 2007 when the FedExCup was introduced.

“I watched it …, obviously, but I didn't really study it too much,” Laird said “All I know, you want to get in there. If you're playing good you have a chance to go on.”

The Scotsman wanted a chance to find out first-hand as a rookie in 2008. But he hadn’t found much form until he tied for 22nd at the RBC Canadian Open and fourth at the Barracuda Championship to move to 164th in the FedExCup with one just start remaining in Greensboro.

At that time, the top 144 made the FedExCup Playoffs, but even so Laird still had a lot of work to do. And he got off to a stellar start at Sedgefield when he tied the course record of 63 to share the lead with Bob Heintz.

Friday’s 4-over 74 was a big setback, dropping Laird down to the cutline in a tie for 61st. He shot 10 strokes lower in the third round and was even better on Sunday – playing his first eight holes in 6 under on the way to a 63 that left him in a tie for fourth and safely into the Playoffs at No. 128.

Laird said getting into the Playoffs was his “No. 1 goal” but he didn’t stop there. He tied for seventh at The Barclays, 50th at the Deutsche Bank Championship and 55th at the BMW Championship.

Not a bad Playoffs debut – and he went on to win the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open the following year.