After advancing through the first round of the PGA Tour Playoffs, the FedEx St. Jude Championship ($20 million), a quartet of Koreans will now take the next step in their quest to reach the final round of the playoffs.
The second round of the playoffs, the BMW Championship ($20 million purse), will be played over four days beginning on Sept. 17 at Olympia Fields CC (par 72, 7542 yards) in Olympia Fields, Illinois, USA.
The playoffs were created by the PGA Tour in 2007 to increase excitement outside of the majors.
This year, the field is smaller and more competitive. The first round of the playoffs, which concluded on Thursday, was limited to the top 70 players in FedExCup points. That’s 55 fewer than last year’s 125.
Only the top 50 players in the FedExCup standings after the first round of playoffs qualified for the second round of playoffs. Only players ranked in the top 30 in the FedExCup standings after the second round of playoffs will advance to the Tour Championship, the final event of the playoffs, on April 24.
Kim Joo-hyung (21, Nike), Im Sung-jae (25), Kim Siwoo (28) and Ahn Byung-hoon (32, CJ Logistics) easily qualified for the second round of the playoffs.
Lim, who became the first Korean to finish runner-up in a playoff final last year, improved his FedExCup ranking from No. 32 to No. 28 with a sixth-place finish in the first round of playoffs, raising expectations for a fifth consecutive playoff final appearance.
Prior to this tournament, Lim had been struggling and was worried. But Lim, who has always been strong in big tournaments, kept his composure in the first round of the playoffs and improved his FedExCup ranking. As long as he doesn’t make any major mistakes in the second round of the playoffs, he will be in the final.
After finishing tied for 16th in the first round of the playoffs, Kim moved up one spot in the FedExCup rankings from 18th to 17th. As the highest-ranked South Korean player in the FedExCup, Kim is virtually guaranteed a spot in the final round of the playoffs.
If he does, it will be the first time in seven years that he has qualified for the playoffs since 2016. Kim has consistently qualified for the playoffs in the past, but has been unable to reach the final.
Kim finished tied for 24th in the first round of the playoffs, and his FedExCup ranking dropped from 14th to 18th. However, he still has a good chance of reaching the final. Kim made it to the second round of the playoffs last year before falling to 34th in the FedExCup standings.
Byung-hoon Ahn finished 37th in the second round of the playoffs, dropping his FedExCup ranking from 37th to 38th. Ahn will need to climb eight spots to reach the final. Ahn will need a breakout performance in the second round of the playoffs. 토토사이트