BMW Championship Starts August 20 at Bellerive With 50 Players Left and 20 Tour Championship Places Open
The second FedExCup playoff event is a no-cut, 50-man field at a par-70 Bellerive, with Scottie Scheffler defending and only the top 30 in points advancing to East Lake the following week.
The FedExCup Playoffs reach their middle leg this week. The BMW Championship runs from 20 to 23 August at Bellerive Country Club outside St. Louis, and it is the event that does the real cutting: 50 players tee off, 30 move on.
How the three-event playoff works
The playoff series opened with the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind from 13 to 16 August with a field of 70. Bellerive takes 50. The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta from 27 to 30 August takes 30. Regular-season points carry into the first two playoff events, so a strong summer still counts here.
The money reflects the funnel. St. Jude and the BMW carry $20 million purses with $3.6 million to the winner. East Lake carries $40 million with $10 million to the FedExCup champion, for a playoff total of roughly $80 million.
Scheffler arrives in front
Scottie Scheffler is the defending BMW champion and leads the FedExCup standings by a wide margin after winning at TPC Southwind by eight shots. No player has successfully defended this title since Patrick Cantlay in 2021 and 2022.
Rory McIlroy comes in needing a reset after a flat week in Memphis. Si Woo Kim, runner-up at St. Jude, arrives in the best form of his summer.
The bubble is where the drama is
The genuine tension at a no-cut event sits at the 30 line. Rickie Fowler holds the last Tour Championship place with a margin of two points over Gary Woodland at No. 31 — the kind of gap a single birdie on Sunday erases. Roughly 20 of the 50 in the field will end the week outside the top 30 and finish their season.
The golf course
Bellerive is a par-70 Robert Trent Jones design measuring 7,448 yards, last on tour for the 2018 PGA Championship. The stretch known as the Ridge is the scoring hinge, and the par-three 16th at over 237 yards is long enough to be a par-three in name only. A par-70 with that length compresses birdie chances and rewards driving accuracy more than most playoff venues.
Following it on Playdash
Playdash prices the BMW Championship with outright winner, top five, top 10, top 20 and each-way markets, plus round-by-round leader and head-to-head matchups that refresh after every round. FedExCup outrights stay live through the Tour Championship, and the 30-man East Lake field is priced as soon as it is set on Sunday evening.
Field, standings and purse details as reported through 19 August 2026.