This week’s second PGA Tour FedExCup playoff event, the BMW Championship, is the toughest annually to handicap of the trio because it moves around every year. The 2026 event, with the top 50 in points all playing, tees off Thursday at Bellerive Country Club outside St. Louis, which hosts for the first time since 2008. CBS Sports has weekend coverage, and fans can try golf betting on the top sports betting apps if they want to get in on the action. The top 30 in points after Sunday advance to the season-ending Tour Championship.
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Last Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship was quite dramatic, with Americans Keith Mitchell and Jordan Spieth finding themselves in the top 50 in points late in their rounds. Both blew it, with Mitchell the first out at 51 – all he needed was par the 72nd hole, but hit in the water and bogeyed — and Spieth 52nd. The player inside the top 50 entering Memphis who fell out was Mitchell, while South Korea’s Sungjae Im moved from 53 to 40 after tying for fifth.
The “bubble boy” coming out of Memphis at 50 is Matt McCarty, with big names such as Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Gary Woodland all outside the top 30 currently. Woodland is 31st, so he only needs a solo 48th to move on.
At 44th, Thomas needs a solo seventh – his only result at least that good in 2026 was a T-4 at the PGA Championship. He won the 2019 BMW Championship at Medinah and has failed to reach the Tour Championship just once in the past 10 seasons (2023).
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The only repeat winner of the event since it became part of the playoffs was Cantlay in 2021 at Caves Valley and 2022 at Wilmington. He was a runner-up to Thomas in 2019. Cantlay also needs a solo seventh to move on but hasn’t finished that high all year (has a T-7). He’s +176 for a top 10, and Thomas is +200.
Meanwhile, there are six players who need to reach no worse than second place to have any chance of catching Fowler at 30 (he needs a solo 50th to advance), but it guarantees nothing. Those six players are McCarty (needs solo second); Maverick McNealy, Eric Cole, Michael Brennan (they all need no worse than two-way tie for second); and Sahith Theegala and Ryo Hisatsune, with them needing no worse than a three-way tie for runner-up.
This marks the fifth PGA Tour event that Bellerive will host, and it will also welcome the 2030 Presidents Cup. When it welcomed this event in 2008, Colombia’s Camilo Villegas shot 15-under 265 to win by two in the second year of the playoffs. The track also hosted the 1965 U.S. Open, 1992 PGA Championship and 2018 PGA Championship. Brooks Koepka won that ’18 major at 16-under 264, two ahead of a runner-up named Tiger Woods.
If you are looking for one link between Villegas and Koepka winning the past two events here, Villegas ranked No. 1 in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach, and Koepka was No. 9. Villegas actually lost strokes off the tee that year. Both were top 18 in putting.
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Bellerive is a par 70 at 7,448 yards with plenty of deep bunkers, penal water and thick rough. It was built to host championships. Some affectionately call it the “Green Monster of Ladue,” as that’s the nearest St. Louis suburb. The par-3 sixth measuring 215 yards is considered the most challenging hole on the course.
The defending champion of the BMW Championship is Scottie Scheffler (+300), but again on a completely different track. Scheffler appears back in dominating form and won in Memphis on Sunday by eight shots for his first victory since January. Scheffler, who hasn’t played a tournament at Bellerive, has now won three of the past five playoff events overall and tries to become the third golfer to win the first two in the playoffs after Bryson DeChambeau in 2018 and Vijay Singh in 2008.
The lone player who teed it up in that 2008 BMW event at Bellerive who is playing this year is Aussie Adam Scott, and he was T-50 then. Scott also finished solo third at the 2018 PGA. He sits 27th in points and is +142 to be the top Oceania player this week – there are only three.
There have been four players to win the BMW Championship on the way to the FedExCup title: Tiger in 2007 and ’09, Billy Horschel in 2014, Cantlay in 2021 and Viktor Hovland in 2023. Tiger has the best scoring average in all playoff events all-time, but the Norwegian Hovland is second at 66.2 and +2700 to win this week. It marks Hovland’s 150th career PGA Tour start.
That a European like Hovland wins this week is +250, while an American is -186. USA players have taken four of the past five BMW Championships and four straight events in 2026 entering.
