The FedExCup Playoffs are all about earning your way in — or at least, that’s the idea. This season’s top 50 have booked their ticket to the BMW Championship with Scottie Scheffler leading the ranks, and Justin Rose, the newly crowned at Memphis, Tennessee. Now, this is where the stakes get higher, and fields get smaller. 20 players had to go back home after months of grinding out results. But for Rickie Fowler, the road was…different.
That difference was because of the sponsor exemption. Sponsor exemptions are special invites that tournament organizers can hand out, usually to big names who wouldn’t qualify otherwise. They give the players a chance to earn the same FedExCup points as the rest of the field who have qualified through merit. According to the Fried Egg Golf podcast- The Shotgun Start, these exemptions played a huge role in Fowler’s entry into the playoffs.
Let’s understand this simply. Rickie Fowler‘s 2025 season has been average by his own standards. He endured sluggish starts at several key tournaments, missing cuts at the WM Phoenix Open and the PGA Championship. Yet, despite those setbacks, he now finds himself in the second playoff event and locked into next season’s signature tournaments.
Bredon Porath of the Fried Egg Golf analyzed Fowler’s points sometime back, and what he found was quite interesting. “I did a sponsors’ exemption audit on this very program at the Travelers Championship, where we determined that Ricky Fowler’s season points at that point, 66% of the FedEx Cup season points had come via sponsors’ exemption, via you know handouts, to signature events. Now he’s added a few more points.”
Rickie Fowler needed a big week to advance to the BMW Championship at the FedEx Cup Playoffs and he’s done just that, finishing T6 to climb to 48th and inside the top 50. That also gets him into all the signature events next season. Big. pic.twitter.com/idTHBvS02W
— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) August 10, 2025
Now, they did another audit with all the new updates, and by their updated count, Rickie Fowler entered this week with 665 FedExCup points, 48% of which came from just six sponsor exemptions. It is quite clear that without these exemptions, there would have been a “very strong chance” Fowler wouldn’t have finished inside the crucial top 50. As Joseph LaMagna puts it, “If he doesn’t get those, maybe he adds another tournament somewhere and wins or something. We’ll never know…a very strong chance that he’s not in the top 50 if he doesn’t get that sponsor exemption.”
Last week, when asked about securing a spot for next year’s SIG events, Fowler downplayed the role of those invites. “I got a handful of spots this year, which I’m incredibly grateful for,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t take advantage of many of those opportunities up until Jack’s event.”
Even if we take into consideration Fowler’s claims, the stats suggest otherwise: 85 points at the Truist, 20 at the Genesis, and a massive 176 at the Memorial — a haul that may have been the deciding factor between advancing to the BMW or ending the season like Chris Kirk, who finished 51st.
“You know exactly what he’s doing here. Trying to pretend like those didn’t impact him this year. ‘Like I got a handful of them.’ He got six! It wasn’t like he got three…He’s trying to downplay how much of a factor those were in him retaining his status. It was a huge factor,” observed LaMagna.
This is definitely a fair argument, as in 2024, things were completely different. According to a recent report on CBS, Fowler missed the FedEx Cup Playoffs entirely, failing to secure a spot inside the top 50—and thus didn’t participate in any signature events that year. That means he didn’t benefit from sponsor exemptions to access those high-point tournaments during that season.
Well, the debate over how he got there isn’t going away anytime soon. However, a solution to avoid such an incident would be beneficial, so that, being the last leg of the season, players get to compete based on merit. This is what is usually the case. So, as per the hosts, a simple solution of no FedExCup points for sponsor exemptions in SIG events will do. But for Fowler, it’s mission accomplished, as of now, all thanks to his luck and his sponsors.
Regardless of Fowler’s luck, on the other hand, someone else’s luck couldn’t help them grab a spot in the playoffs.
Jordan Spieth’s comeback stalls despite sponsor exemption
It would have been great if some of Rickie Fowler’s luck could have been rubbed on Jordan Spieth. The three-time major champion was working his way back from an annoying wrist injury and was handed at least five invites into SIG Events this season. The boosts kept him in the FedExCup conversation, wagging in front of him opportunities he otherwise wouldn’t have. But unlike Fowler, Spieth couldn’t convert them into enough points to cross the top-50 threshold. His year was a mix of flashes — four top-10s, including a solo fourth at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson – and then some really frustrating lows, like a missed cut at the PGA Championship.
By the time the 32-year-old reached the FedEx St. Jude Championship, his path was razor-thin. He did tie at 38th, but it was not enough to shove him through. He slipped to 54th in the standings, missing yet another cut. Although his PGA Tour card is secure for next season (as he finished inside the top 125), this early playoff exit for sure stings, especially when the same sponsor exemptions gave Fowler a late-season lifeline. Moreover, this might also draw a curtain on his supposed entry to the Ryder Cup team this year. Luck opened the door for Spieth, but couldn’t carry him through.
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