Ten chasers to watch with 6 events left in Korn Ferry Tour’s race for top 30
The PGA Tour begins its postseason this week in Memphis. As for the Korn Ferry Tour, it still has six events remaining on its schedule.
Gone starting this year is the separate Finals points list. Instead, the KFT points race will continue through the KFT Championship, with the top 30 at season’s end graduating to the PGA Tour. For each of the final three tournaments, there will be slightly elevated points up for grabs, most notable 600 points going to the winners compared to the normal 500. The field sizes, much like the FedExCup Playoffs, incrementally decrease, too, going from 144 for the Simmons Bank Open to 120 for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship to 75 for the KFT finale at Victoria National.
Four players – Ben Kohles, Rico Hoey, Ben Silverman and Pierceson Coody – have already locked up their 2024 PGA Tour cards and spots in the PGA Tour’s new-look fall series, where they will be competing for spots in next year’s early signature events beginning with next month’s Fortinet Championship. Other names, such as the red-hot Adrien Dumont de Chassart (he still hasn’t finished outside the top 10), Alejandro Tosti and Chandler Phillips, are knocking on the PGA Tour’s door, too.
But further down and around the bubble, the competition is tight. Chase Seiffert holds onto the No. 30 position entering this week’s Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha, Nebraska, but a number of players are right on his heels.
Here are 10 notables looking to make a run at the top 30 over the next month and a half:
Logan McAllister
Points rank: 31
Points back of No. 30: 9
It’s been an up-and-down year for the Oklahoma product, who missed six of his first seven cuts and now is on a skid of five missed cuts in his last seven. However, a hot four-event stretch last spring, which included a playoff loss at the Lecom Suncoast Classic and two other top-10s, has a PGA Tour card very much within reach.
Spencer Levin
Points rank: 33
Points back of No. 30: 16
His emotional victory at the Veritex Bank Championship in mid-April boosted him to No. 11 in points, though he’s slowly fallen since with just one top-20 finish in his last 13 starts. He continues to drive it extremely accurately, but he’s well outside the top 100 in putting average and birdie average. He needs the flatstick to heat up just a tad these next six weeks.
Trace Crowe
Points rank: 36
Points back of No. 30: 57
He’s missed over half his cuts, but the Auburn grad’s playoff win at the NV5 Invitational last month moved him from No. 139 in points to inside the top 40.
Chris Gotterup
Points rank: 37
Points back of No. 30: 82
The former NCAA player of the year has been a cut-making machine, having missed just three in 18 starts. But he needs to contend more down the stretch as he owns just a pair of top-10s this season. He’s nearly top 10 in greens hit and he mashes it, ranking third in driving distance, though he’s had some accuracy issues. A few more fairways moving forward and Gotterup could pop and win an event or two.
Frankie Capan III
Points rank: 38
Points back of No. 30: 85
After a slow start to the year, Capan caught fire toward the end of April, posting three top-6s over the past few months and qualifying for the U.S. Open in June. He’s cooled off in recent weeks, so he desperately needs a couple more of those top-6s to crack the top 30.
Ricky Castillo
Points rank: 39
Points back of No. 30: 86
After leading Florida to an NCAA title, Castillo won his KFT debut in a playoff and was T-11 the next week to sit No. 25 in points. Three straight MCs now entering this week, however, have seen him drop. The firepower is there for another special week to rocket Ricky right back up the standings.
Mac Meissner
Points rank: 40
Points back of No. 30: 123
If only you got extra points for shooting 59. Meissner has made a ton of cuts, but other than a playoff loss in Panama in February, he’s not finished better than T-13. He must contend on a couple of occasions down the stretch to move inside the top 30.
Sam Saunders
Points rank: 48
Points back of No. 30: 186
At 36 years old, Saunders’ path back to the Tour requires him to find the form that he showed earlier this year when he lost in a playoff and posted two other top-10s in a five-start stretch. His T-25 last week in Utah snapped a run of five straight MCs.
Wilson Furr
Points rank: 50
Points back of No. 30: 190
Considering he almost thought his year was over after a bizarre penalty for taking a shuttle in April, Furr has done well to give himself a shot at a PGA Tour card. He went T-7, T-2 in two starts after that mishap, though he’s got just two top-25s since.
Norman Xiong
Points rank: 58
Points back of No. 30: 300
A T-2 at the Visit Knoxville Open in late May has him on the radar, but the rest of his season has lacked the type of golf he needs to graduate. He’s missed seven of his past nine cuts, though a T-16 his last time out at NV5 has him with at least some momentum.