Shane Lowry, 17 other Olympians headline field for Wyndham Championship – MASHAHER

Shane Lowry will head straight from Paris to Greensboro, North Carolina, for this week’s Wyndham Championship.

Lowry is one of 18 Olympians in the field for the PGA Tour’s regular-season finale, and when it comes to the FedExCup point standings, only Sungjae Im (ninth) is ranked higher than the No. 10 Lowry.

With the top 70 players in points after the Wyndham advancing to the playoffs, Lowry is already assured to be playing at least the first two legs of the postseason, the FedEx St. Jude Invitational and BMW Championship. However, his goal is to make it to East Lake for the first time, which is why he’s hoping to bank some extra points – and some bonus cash via the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 – at Sedgefield Country Club.

“I was trying to make the decision over the last couple of weeks, because if I don’t do as well in the The Open, I wasn’t going to go and chase it,” Lowry said. “I don’t like chasing stuff. But I also hate the unknown. I like to know what I’m doing and plan where I’m going. … I sort of sat down with my coach and my team last week and were like, right, what’s the best thing to do? I was like, look, there’s only four weeks left in the FedExCup. I think this is probably going to be one of the best chances I’ll ever have to actually win the FedExCup, so every point might count at the end of the day as well, not only for Comcast, and if I can make a hundred FedExCup points next week or more, it’s certainly going to help me along the way.

“At the end of the day, I have goal in my head where I want to be going into Atlanta and if I’m there, I think I’ll have a shot of doing something cool.”

Joining Im and Lowry in the Wyndham field are 21 of the current FedExCup top 50, a benchmark that after the FedEx St. Jude secures spots in all of next year’s signature events. That group includes Nos. 43-50: Keegan Bradley, Denny McCarthy, Will Zalatoris, Mac Hughes, Jake Knapp, Harris English, Austin Eckroat and Nick Taylor.

Also, Nos. 51-54 are playing: Patrick Rodgers, Justin Rose, Aaron Rai and Eric Cole.

And as for the top-70 race, here is who is just inside – and outside – that bubble:

65. Mark Hubbard
66. Nick Dunlap
67. Jhonattan Vegas
68. Emiliano Grillo
69. Seamus Power
70. Brendon Todd
71. Victor Perez
72. Davis Riley
73. Andrew Putnam
74. Kurt Kitayama
75. Luke List

The 156-player field also features sponsor exemptions such as Florida State junior Luke Clanton and newly minted pro Michael Thorbjornsen.

Not in the field but on the alternate list are six players who reshuffled to the bottom of the reorder category back in April, including Q-School grad Raul Pereda and KFT grad Scott Gutschewski. Blaine Hale and Josh Teater, who were among the players who struggled to get starts early in the year, needed restricted sponsor invites to gain entry into the coveted field.