OWINGS MILLS, Md. – The stage is set for Sunday drama at the BMW Championship. Storylines and stakes abound across the leaderboard. While Robert MacIntyre and Scottie Scheffler have distanced themselves from the rest of the field, all 49 golfers have something to play for.

Much of the field will have one eye on the leaderboard and one eye on the FedExCup standings, and they hope to reach the top-30 and secure a place in next week’s TOUR Championship. Others enter the final round with major Ryder Cup implications. Then, of course, there’s the chance that MacIntyre and Scheffler fall back to the crowd and make it all the more compelling.

Ahead of the final round at Caves Valley, here are the players who have the most at stake.

1. Robert MacIntyre

MacIntyre’s place at next week’s TOUR Championship is secure, but the stakes are still high as the Scot attempts to cling to a lead he’s held all week and hold off a red-hot Scottie Scheffler. If MacIntyre can do it, it would be his biggest win to date, given the stature of the FedExCup Playoffs and who he fought off to claim it.

MacIntyre led Scheffler by five strokes after 36 holes, tied for the widest margin in the history of the Playoffs. The world No. 1 got within three strokes multiple times, and it appeared that would be the 54-hole margin until MacIntyre poured in a 41-foot birdie at the 18th to stretch the lead back to four shots. Scheffler is the only player within five shots of MacIntyre.

A lead that large is a blessing, but it also comes with its own inherent pressure. There’s an expectation to close it out and not falter. It’s MacIntyre’s second 54-hole lead on TOUR. He led by four on that occasion, but his winning margin was just one.

MacIntyre is projected to move to No. 3 in the FedExCup with a victory. It would be MacIntyre’s third PGA TOUR win of his career.

“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog, and I grew up fighting to be in this position,” MacIntyre said.

2. Rickie Fowler

Can the bubble boy pull off another high-wire act? That’s the task ahead for Fowler, who just a week ago played himself in from outside the bubble at Memphis and is in striking distance to do the same in Baltimore. At 6-under and tied for eighth through 54 holes, Fowler is projected to be No. 32 in the FedExCup. That’s quite the improvement from where he began the week – 48th – but not quite good enough to get to East Lake. Per TOUR projections after three rounds, Fowler was just one shot from moving inside the projections. Notably, Fowler bogeyed the 18th on Saturday. Had he not, he would be inside the projections heading into Sunday.

Regardless, Fowler is in for another Sunday straddling the bubble. He’s ready for it.

“Did what I needed to do today,” Fowler said. “Yeah, excited for tomorrow. Know what we need to do and see if we can go get it done… In a way, I'd much rather be on the outside looking in. I know what I need to go do, versus maybe being inside trying to protect type of thing.”

Fowler is attempting to qualify for the TOUR Championship for just the second time in the last five years.

3. Michael Kim

Kim has never made the TOUR Championship in his nine years on TOUR. Could the 10th attempt prove to be the breakthrough? Kim’s right on the top-30 bubble with 18 holes to play. A round of even-par 70 on Saturday left him 6-under, tied for eighth. Most importantly, it put him No. 29 in the projected FedExCup standings.

Kim knows better than most how difficult it is to reach East Lake. Even when he won in 2018, he didn’t qualify for the TOUR Championship. He’s experienced his fair share of struggles since that lone win, four times finishing outside the top 200 of the FedExCup. In that way, Sunday could be the culmination of Kim’s career renaissance. Qualifying for the TOUR Championship, without a win, would be the ultimate display of consistency that Kim lacked for so long.

“TOUR Championship I feel like is the No. 1 goal on everyone's mind at the start of the year, along with top 50 here,” Kim said earlier this week. “To be completely honest, I was probably — if you had told me I'd be top 50, I would have just signed right there and just watched everyone else play. But once I had a really good stretch in that beginning to the middle part of the season, I really wanted to make the push for the TOUR Championship.”

The margins remain razor-thin for Kim. One shot worse on Saturday, and Kim would be projected outside the top-30. It may well come down to that margin on Sunday.

4. Harry Hall

Alongside Kim, Hall is the only other player who began the week outside the top-30 that was projected inside the threshold after 54 holes. His positioning is similarly tenuous.

Beginning the week No. 45 in the FedExCup, Hall has worked his way up to No. 25 in the projections after rounds of 68-67-67 put him in a tie for fourth.

Hall also has the Ryder Cup as an added carrot. The Englishman is currently 19th in the Ryder Cup points standings, but has played as good as any European in recent months. Per Data Golf, Hall’s been the fifth-best Euro over the last three months. Crucially, the TOUR Championship would also give him one more week to prove himself on a big stage while other captain’s pick possibilities – Aaron Rai, Nicolai Højgaard and Rasmus Højgaard – failed to reach this point in the Playoffs.

The Englishman is having a career year, backed by seven top-20s in his last 10 starts. He will likely need to finish inside the top-10 or better at the BMW Championship to keep his season alive.

5. Keegan Bradley

Speaking of the Ryder Cup, Bradley has stakes of his own to play for at the BMW Championship.

The U.S. captain has spent months deliberating his own inclusion as a player and only has five more rounds (one at the BMW Championship and four at the TOUR Championship) to make up his mind. Bradley hasn’t made it easy on himself. After winning the Travelers Championship and admitting that it changed his thoughts on whether he should pick himself, Bradley has struggled to maintain that level. The American has gone T41-T30-MC-T44 in his four starts since. At 2-over, tied for 29th, after three rounds at Caves Valley, Bradley is headed for a similarly mediocre result. Meanwhile, other prospective Americans like Maverick McNealy, Sam Burns and Cameron Young continue to flash form.

That’s not all bad news for Bradley. He’s surely happy to see his fellow Americans playing well. But as he continues to weigh whether he should play, something he’s outwardly said he’d like to do, it’s going to take better golf than he’s been playing. Sunday at the BMW would be a good place for that better golf to kick in.