These golfers face uncertain futures as end of season looms

The PGA Tour takes a week off but there will be plenty of players working their socks off in an attempt to find something as the season nears its climax - and especially so for those who did not make the restricted field in Japan. The chances to earn much-needed prize money are fast running out and many futures are on the line. 

You could be forgiven for thinking that this will only impact golfers you have never heard of but there are many high-profile players who will be deeply concerned about what may lie ahead.

When the last putt is holed at the RSM Classic on November 23, if you are outside the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings the chances are that you will be heading back to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2026 and facing an uncertain future.

There is still plenty to play for. If you can end the year in the top 50 it guarantees entry to every full-field event and, more lucratively, the PGA Tour’s cash-laden signature events. For those guys it is a case of happy days ahead.

Of course none of this is of any concern to the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. So who are those whose futures may be on the line? 

Some of the names may surprise you - they include the likes of Victor Perez, Matt Wallace, Lanto Griffin, Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson, Brandt Snedeker, Thorbjorn Olesen, Cameron Champ and Thriston Lawrence.

Perez, Olesen and Lawrence all have the comfort blanket of knowing that they can return to the DP World Tour, where they have all enjoyed so much success. 

I have been astonished at Lawrence’s plight. He seems to have a game that is made for the PGA Tour but in 19 starts in 2025 he has made just seven cuts with a solitary top 10 finish at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. 

Bizarrely, he returned to Europe while in the middle of that slump and promptly won the European Masters. He is currently 25th in the Race to Dubai and a decent finish to the DP World Tour season could see him once again win one of the 10 PGA Tour cards up for grabs at the conclusion of the DP World Tour Championship. He will then have some decisions to make.

Wallace is a golfer who constantly flatters to deceive. He has spent the past few years attempting to balance life between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, and narrowly missed out on a Ryder Cup captain’s pick. He is currently in 93rd place and if he ends 2025 outside the top 100 in the FedEx standings, as seems highly likely, he will have little choice but to turn his attention to playing full-time on the DP World Tour and I cannot help but feel he will benefit from doing precisely that. His other option will be to play on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Champ is a young American golfer who not so long ago looked ready to take our sport by storm but he discovered that hitting the ball miles is simply not enough. He admits that he has suffered a crisis of confidence. 

Kuchar, Johnson and Snedeker are all nearing the end of their careers at the highest level and will receive invitations to play in some events in 2026. And if Kuchar is named as Ryder Cup captain then he will have no such concerns.

Others at risk include Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Sahith Theegala, Nick Dunlap and Will Zalatoris.

Horschel and Zalatoris missed huge parts of the season because of injury and can depend upon medical exemptions. 

Horschel is now fully fit once more and has already shown that his game is not too far away. For Zalatoris, the future is far more uncertain. He has been blighted by back problems and has now undergone two major surgeries. Time alone will tell whether he still has a future in the game.

Theegala and Dunlap have had dreadful seasons. It happens. But they have exemptions for 2026 on account of recent victories.

At the start of 2024, Homa was comfortably inside the top 10 in the world rankings. In 2023 he even climbed to fifth in the world. Since then, his game has fallen off a cliff and the exemption he secured by winning the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open is about to end. He is now ranked 127th in the world and is in 100th place in the FedEx standings - right on the bubble. 

In theory he needs a big finish to the season if he is to avoid trudging back to the Korn Ferry Tour. In reality, he is another who is likely to benefit from sponsor invitations in 2026 but he will know that this will be a one-season-only deal so he really is heading towards the last-chance saloon.

It all goes to prove that there are no guarantees. Past reputations count for nothing. It will be fascinating to see how the rest of the season plays out and what happens moving forward.