GREENSBORO, N.C. – It’s the next thing up, which means it’s the most important thing. But the implications here could be long-lasting.

Eighth-year PGA TOUR pro Keith Mitchell enters this week’s Wyndham Championship at No. 72 on the season-long FedExCup standings, right on the edge of the top 70 that will qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs at week’s end. Making the top 70 means you have a chance to move inside the top 50 after the postseason’s first leg, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, which offers access to next season’s full slate of Signature Events – which offer elevated points and prize money. It’s a career-changing threshold, with this week’s Wyndham Championship a seminal touchpoint. If you’re not in the top 70 after this week, after all, there’s no top-50 possibility.

Mitchell enters the Wyndham Championship less than six points off the No. 70 spot (currently held by Matti Schmid), and he needs a solo 58th at minimum for a chance to move inside the top 70 (and pending other players’ performances, he might need more). Mitchell, long regarded as one of the TOUR’s elite pros off the tee, knows what a schedule of Signature Events can mean for one’s career – he ranked No. 21 in Strokes Gained: Total in 2024 but finished No. 77 on the FedExCup after the Wyndham, failing to qualify for this season’s Signature Events. Those elevated points matter, and it’s not lost on him.

“It’s going to be an exciting week because I gave myself a chance,” Mitchell said as he traversed Sedgefield Country Club’s fourth fairway on a muggy Tuesday morning in North Carolina. “That’s all you want in sports, in golf, is just to give yourself a chance to try to take advantage of the moment. So this week, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m here to take advantage of it, I’ve got an opportunity, and I want to play the best that I can and move on to Memphis, BMW, TOUR Championship, keep going.

“It all starts here.”

In the meantime, he embraces this week’s challenge at Sedgefield, a venerable Donald Ross venue with dense rough and slippery greens where driving accuracy is at a premium. Whereas the action in most TOUR events is focused around the top of the leaderboard, this week’s de facto “leaderboard” is centered around the top-70 bubble, where characters like No. 69 Byeong Hun An, No. 70 Matti Schmid, No. 71 Nicolai Højgaard, and No. 72 Mitchell will take center stage. That quartet is separated by just 6 FedExCup points, meaning that for An or Schmid, they could be surpassed by Højgaard or Mitchell even with a pedestrian finish on the weekend. There’s also the chance that others further down the list could win or finish high at the Wyndham to knock them outside the top 70, as well.

In some ways, it seems the end of the PGA TOUR Regular Season has approached rather abruptly. Gone are the days of the “wraparound” season starting in September and weaving to the following August – this season started in January and has already reached the final stop before the FedExCup Playoffs. The time for urgency is now, which brings us back to Mitchell’s scenario this week. At No. 51 in Strokes Gained: Total for the season, his body of work is Playoffs-quality, but without having access to most Signature Events (he finished T33 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and T7 at the Truist Championship), he’s on the outside looking in.

The bad news: He’s currently on the outside looking in. The good news: He doesn’t need too, too much, and he has been in similar scenarios enough times where he can start to anticipate how his body might react.

“It’s always adrenaline,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “Sometimes you channel it well, and sometimes it works the other way against you, and it also kind of depends on what the other guy’s doing … Every week out here is a tournament, and so you feel that a lot coming down the stretch regardless of where it stands and status. This week might be a little different because you’re either playing next week or you’re not, but we’ll see.

“Adrenaline’s always the key. Learning how to channel that and doing it the best will help you, regardless of the moment.”

While playing a practice round Tuesday alongside Tom Kim and former Zurich Classic of New Orleans partner Sungjae Im (whom he recruited into Georgia Bulldogs fandom), Mitchell reflected on past pressure situations and the learnings that can apply this week. Mitchell drained a mid-range birdie on the 72nd hole to earn his first TOUR title at the 2019 Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, which is an easy answer as the most clutch moment of his career. But upon digging deeper into the memory bank, he recalled a Q-School for PGA TOUR Latinoamerica status in 2015, where he survived a playoff in Argentina to earn status on a TOUR-sanctioned circuit for the first time.

That led to success at Second Stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q-School that fall, where he earned Korn Ferry Tour status for the first time. He earned his PGA TOUR card after two seasons (coming up clutch with a pair of top-six finishes in the 2017 Korn Ferry Tour Finals), and he has kept his TOUR card ever since. He has thrived in several pressure situations throughout his career. So in a way, this is just the next one up.

The Wyndham Championship will mark Mitchell’s 209th career TOUR start, and although it has flown by in ways, he remembers the early building blocks like they were just the other day.

“You just try to build on those moments,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “Probably the biggest one was the putt to win, but if it wasn’t for those other ones before that, I wouldn’t have that opportunity.”

Life’s events build on each other and cascade toward the current moment. Mitchell’s current moment just happens to pose a specific question: Will he play well this week to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs? He entered last year’s Wyndham at No. 79 on the FedExCup and played well, finishing T12, but it wasn’t enough to move inside the top 70. This year, a top-12 finish will quite likely be enough to punch his ticket to next week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. He knows this, too.

In addition to Mitchell, here are five players outside the top 70 on the FedExCup who need a strong week at the Wyndham to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs.

Click here for scenarios for all players outside the top 70 into the Wyndham.

Chris Kirk (No. 73)

Needs solo 43rd at Wyndham for a chance to qualify

Kirk stood a distant No. 130 on the FedExCup after missing the cut at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, but he has turned on the jets with three top-15 finishes in his last five starts, including a playoff loss to Aldrich Potgieter at the Rocket Classic in late June, to approach the precipice of the top 70. It means that he no longer needs anything spectacular to qualify for the Playoffs, but the Georgia alum needs something solid.

Gary Woodland (No. 75)

Needs solo 25th at Wyndham for a chance to qualify

After undergoing brain surgery to remove a lesion in fall 2023, Woodland returned to action in 2024 and was justifiably slow to return to form, finishing No. 155 on the FedExCup after the Wyndham (and No. 140 on the final FedExCup Fall standings). He has upped his game in the second season of his comeback, though, with his 2025 campaign highlighted by a runner-up finish at the Texas Children’s Houston Open and five other top-25 finishes. He now needs another top 25, and maybe more, to qualify for the Playoffs.

Adam Scott (No. 85)

Needs two-way T3 at Wyndham for a chance to qualify

Scott, 45, has qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs in 17 of 18 seasons, and he’d love to deliver at the Wyndham – an event for which he has an affinity – and add another FedExCup Playoffs berth to his resume. Scott’s season thus far has been steady if unspectacular; he has recorded five top 25s in 16 starts but has yet to notch a top 10, and he came close at the U.S. Open at Oakmont before a final-round 79 for a T12 finish. His inspiring play for the first three days at Oakmont showed that his world-class game isn’t too far away, and now is the time for the 14-time TOUR winner to put it all together for 72 holes.

Joel Dahmen (No. 101)

Needs two-way T2 at Wyndham for a chance to qualify

After amicably splitting with his longtime caddie Geno Bonnalie, Dahmen has recorded a pair of respectable finishes (T17 at Barracuda Championship, T39 at 3M Open), but he needs something much greater to qualify for the Playoffs. Dahmen nearly earned his second TOUR title at the Corales Puntacana Championship in April but made three straight closing bogeys to fall one short of winner Garrick Higgo. That’s his most recent top-10 finish – and there’s no time like the present for his next.

Max Homa (No. 106)

Needs two-way T2 at minimum for a chance to qualify

It has been a season of change for Homa, who has been open about his struggles in a campaign that has included a new caddie, new coach and new equipment. The six-time TOUR winner has notched just two top-25 finishes in 19 starts this season, but his best finish came at the John Deere Classic (T5) earlier this month. The California native knows he needs his best golf to move inside the top 70 and qualify for the Playoffs, but for a player of Homa’s talent, that potential click is always in the realm.