The fringe players on the PGA Tour spend a lot of time walking the fairways with small galleries and not much attention being paid to where they finish. That will be at least a little bit different this week, the last week of the Tour’s long, grinding regular season, because the top 125 guys in FedEx Cup points will be defined when the Wyndham Championship completes, and those guys are automatic for the Tour again next year.

Here’s a look at those just above and just below the cutoff line, and, no surprise, all of them are in the field for this week’s event in Greensboro NC.

None of the above are among the event favorites, but Noren, Wise, Laird, and Berger are sufficiently solid to be considered in the top third of the field. Noren comes in with finishes just outside the top 10 in his last two appearances, the British Open and WGC FedEx. Wise has been a steady if unspectacular performer with eight made cuts in his last 10 appearances, including all four of the majors.

FedEx points are awarded on a basis of 500 to the winner down to 1.5 for someone finishing 85th. Just for a general understanding of what it takes to move around within that list, consider that the 135th guy, Wes Roach, could move up to 125th with 25 points for finishing 32nd or better. He could move up to 115th with 65 points for finishing 12th or better. And of course, he would move back down if someone else moved up farther.

There also is a bonus pool – referred to as the Wyndham Rewards — for the top 10 players in the final regular season FedEx points table. Brooks Koepka already has locked up the $2 million first prize. Tenth place is worth $500,000, which doesn’t seem to be enough to attract guys near the line to play this week. For instance, Justin Rose is 10th and not playing. Paul Casey at eighth is the only one who is playing. “You know, it’s tough,” defending Wyndham champion Brandt Snedeker told Jeff Mills at the Greensboro News & Record. “I get why (they are not appearing), because we have three big events coming up. We just had two big events back-to-back, so guys are tired. It’s a hot time of the year, so they look at this as their week off before the playoffs start.”

The obvious favorite this week is Webb Simpson. He has runner-up finishes in both June (Canadian) and July (last week’s WGC FedEx), has no missed cuts since March, and has a tremendous record in this event – the win in 2011 and finishes of second, third, fifth, and sixth within the last five years. Simpson also fits the course.

Despite not getting the victory last week, Simpson moved to 13th on the FedEx points list to give his Tour Championship chances a boost. “It’s big. I took a month off after the U.S. Open,” he told golfchannel.com. “So I needed a low week this week for me to get some points, [The Tour Championship] is something we think about all year.”

The statistic most highly correlated with success on the Sedgefield Country Club over the past eight competitions is shots gained around the green. Not too far behind in the strength of correlation are shots gained off the tee, shots gained in approach, and driving accuracy. Per the Hawley course fit statistics, Casey is the player whose statistical profile best matches those stats. Casey is in the top quarter of all U.S./ Euro pros in shots gained around the green, in the top 10 percent in shots gained in approach, and top 5 percent in the other two. Hideki Matsuyama, Simpson, Chez Reavie, and Byeong Hun An are next in course fit and all within a quarter-stroke per round of Casey.

None of the players in the table above of those ranked 116 to 135 in FedEx Cup points is among the leaders in course fit. Martin Trainer shows up as one of the worst fits for the course.

Based on the results of next week’s Northern Trust, the field will be cut from 125 to 70. Then based on the results of the BMW, the field will be cut from 70 to 30 for the Tour Championship, Aug. 22-25 in Atlanta. A pool of $70 million will be distributed based on the results of those events, with a cool $15 million going to the winner.