On the eve of last year’s final round of The RSM Classic, Joel Dahmen stood and watched his young son, Riggs, play with his friends at PGA TOUR daycare, coming to grips with the idea that his son wouldn’t see his buddies much next year.

Dahmen had just shot a third-round 70 and his FedExCup projection plummeted below the top-125 threshold he needed to keep his card. He required a miraculous Sunday to keep full status for 2025, which was locked in at the conclusion of the tournament. Dahmen’s mood was “somber, say funeral effect maybe,” hardly in the headspace to manifest a career day.

“Man, it would be really cool if I could pick up my kid for five more years from this daycare thing and maybe not having that opportunity,” Dahmen recalled thinking. “And the kid's amazing, he doesn't care and he's so much fun. But he was playing and Lona (Dahmen's wife) and I were just kind of sitting there and I was just staring off into the wall. She was like, 'Are you OK?' I'm like, 'No, I'm not OK, I want this to happen.' She's like, 'well, you can still play golf tomorrow, right? It's not over.' And that was kind of one of those things, like the switch flipped.”

Dahmen shot 64 the next day, a remarkable round that did just enough. When the dust settled, Dahmen was No. 124 in the FedExCup. Had he been one shot worse, Dahmen would have lost his card.

It’s those stakes that define the FedExCup Fall season, as the narrative shifts from postseason aspirations to career preservation. A year ago, J.J. Spaun began the fall No. 98 in the FedExCup, hoping to keep his TOUR aspirations alive for another year. Daniel Berger was outside the top 140, on the brink of losing his card completely. Later this month, Spaun will represent Team USA in the Ryder Cup. Berger can rest at home comfortably, knowing his job is safe for at least another year after an impressive run last fall sparked a resurgent season.

A new crop of players will spend this fall grinding, hoping that next year they will be where Spaun and Berger are now. Though this year’s group faces a more stringent proposition than they did a year ago.

The stakes are the same, but the parameters have shifted. Since 1983, and up through last year, the top-125 finishers in the FedExCup (and previously the Official Money List) earned exempt status for the following season. That is no longer the case. Only the top 100 players in the FedExCup at the conclusion of the fall will keep full status for 2026.

The changes were implemented ahead of this season, with the intention of making the PGA TOUR more cutthroat while increasing the value of what it means to have a TOUR card. In previous years, some players with full status still struggled to get into various Full-Field Events throughout the year. The new system is designed to remedy that issue.

What does that mean for the FedExCup Fall? The competition should be even more compelling, with the same number of players fighting for a reduced number of TOUR cards. Under the old system, Dahmen, currently No. 93, likely would not have had to sweat the top-125 bubble. This year, he’s far from guaranteed a spot in the top 100. Nerve-racking for Dahmen, captivating for consumers.

Conditional status is still in play for those who finish between No. 101-150 in the FedExCup, with varying levels of access and priority depending on where they finish, but it’s not an ideal or predictable outcome. Without finishing in the top 100, players will have little control over their schedule and just a few opportunities next year.

Keeping your TOUR card isn’t the only incentive for players in the fall. While Nos. 1-50 in the FedExCup standings are set and cannot change regardless of what happens in the fall, everyone from No. 51 to outside the top-200 in the FedExCup can move around based on the results of the fall season. That becomes particularly important for players trying to play their way into Nos. 51-60 in the FedExCup Fall, known as the Aon Next 10. Whoever occupies those spots after The RSM Classic will earn spots into the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational, two of the first Signature Events of 2026.

Last year, Maverick McNealy finished No. 51 and parlayed those Signature Event exemptions into a career year in 2025. McNealy finished 40th at Pebble Beach, then notched a runner-up finish at The Genesis Invitational, earning himself enough FedExCup points to keep him in the Aon Next 10 all season. The year before, Ludvig Åberg did the same thing. Beginning the year in the Aon Next 10 can be a springboard for a player’s season.

For top players who already have status locked up through winner’s exemptions or other avenues, the Aon Next 10 will be the biggest carrot. It’s a star-studded group that will be vying for those spots, including Jordan Spieth (No. 54), Wyndham Clark (No. 56), Min Woo Lee (No. 57), Tony Finau (No. 66), Adam Scott (No. 90), Tom Kim (No. 94), Billy Horschel (No. 102), Max Homa (No. 111) and Sahith Theegala (No. 147).

Others face no safety net. Adam Hadwin finished top-50 in 2024, earning spots in all the Signature Events this season. But his year could not have gone worse, and now the Canadian sits 136th in the standings without anything to fall back on. The fall will be littered with stories like Hadwin’s, each hoping they can channel what Dahmen did on Sunday at The RSM Classic.

“My story’s still not done,” Dahmen said during that week last year.

The story of this PGA TOUR season isn’t either. For many, the fall is just the beginning.