Kim Si-woo, ranked fourth in the FedEx Cup standings, tees off at this week's BMW Championship. [Photo=PGA Tour]
Kim Si-woo, ranked fourth in the FedEx Cup standings, tees off at this week's BMW Championship. [Photo=PGA Tour]

The BMW Championship, the second event of the 2026 FedEx Cup Playoffs with a $20 million purse, tees off Thursday for four days at Bellerive Country Club (par 70, 7,448 yards) in St. Louis, Missouri.

The tournament's central storyline is by far the race for the final 30 spots in the Tour Championship, the season-ending event and the PGA Tour's ultimate prize. With no cut and 50 players in the field, this week's results will determine who advances to East Lake.

Three South Korean players — Kim Si-woo, Kim Joo-hyung and Im Sung-jae — enter the week locked in a fierce battle for position. Kim Si-woo, sitting fourth in the FedEx Cup standings, has in effect already secured his place in the finale.

Kim Joo-hyung (26th) and Im Sung-jae (40th), however, face far less certainty. Im in particular must finish no worse than sole seventh to extend his streak — he is chasing an eighth consecutive Tour Championship appearance.

Kim Si-woo arrives on the back of a runner-up finish at last week's FedEx St. Jude Championship, the playoff opener. He has yet to win this season but has posted three runner-up finishes and two third-place results. His season earnings stand at $9,610,944, and adding $389,056 or more this week would push him past $10 million for the season for the first time in his career.

Kim Joo-hyung will need to monitor the FedEx Cup leaderboard round by round. A tie for 12th last week was enough to hold his 26th-place ranking, but he must defend that position this week to reach the Tour Championship. Playoff events award four times the FedEx Cup points of regular-season events, meaning a single poor round can send a player's ranking into freefall.

Im faces the most urgent task of the three. A tie for fifth last week lifted him from 53rd to 40th, earning him a spot in this week's field, but he still has one final hurdle to clear. Im is the only Asian player to have reached the Tour Championship in each of the seven consecutive seasons from his PGA Tour rookie year in 2019 through last year.

Bellerive Country Club is a traditional parkland course with a distinguished history, having hosted the 1992 and 2018 PGA Championship and the 2008 BMW Championship, among other marquee events. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the course in 1960, and Rees Jones — known as the "Open Doctor" — later renovated it to modern tournament standards.

This week the course plays as a par 70, with two par-5 holes converted to par 4s. The layout demands precise iron play — the course stretches long, the greens are large, and the bunkers surrounding them are punishing. Numerous par-4 holes exceed 450 yards, placing a premium on trajectory control with mid- and long irons and utility clubs, as well as the ability to hit greens in regulation.


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