Last week Brendan Steele made it into Sunday’s play in The Barclays, the first of four FedExCup playoff tournaments, but he didn’t score well enough to help himself in the standings. The Idyllwild native posted an even-par 71-71-69-73 — 284 to finish in 57th place.
He found only 53.6 percent of the fairways with drives averaging 281 yards and hit 66.7 percent of the greens in regulation, while gaining only 0.11 strokes putting against the field. Nevertheless, he pulled off some sterling shots, like Sunday’s 172-yard iron from the left fairway bunker on the par-4 seventh hole that left him a 2-footer for birdie.
Quintuple FedExCup points are awarded during the playoffs, so although Steele picked up 63 points last week, he dropped nine places in the FedExCup standings — from 67th to 76th place. This is important because he must be in the top 70 to advance into the third tournament, the BMW Championship.
Steele easily qualifies (top-100) for the second FedExCup playoff tournament this week, the Deutsche Bank Championship on the TPC Boston course in Norton, Massachusetts. But he likely will have to score better in the Deutsche Bank than he did last week in The Barclays to advance into next week’s BMW.