Xander Schauffele in Danger of Having Season End Early at FedEx St. Jude Championship

Last season, Xander Schauffele won two major championships. A year later, he’s in danger of having his season end early.

The top 70 on the FedExCup points list is teeing it up in the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, and the top 50 after this week will advance to next week’s BMW Championship.

And Schauffele, the world’s third-ranked player, sits T48 at even par in the 69-player field through 36 holes at TPC Southwind in the PGA Tour’s playoff opener. Currently, he’s projected at 48th in the FedExCup standings, which would punch his ticket to Baltimore for the BMW Championship by the skin of his teeth.

But there’s still a lot of golf to be played.

“In order for me to have a good chance to get to East Lake, I’ve got to play BMW, obviously,” Schauffele told Golf Digest after Round 2. “So yeah, that’s first. I’ve got 36 holes and, yeah, I'm just trying to play a little bit better golf each day. So today was a little bit of a setback from yesterday.”

The 31-year-old’s season began with a bump in the road. A rib injury sidelined him from the second week of January until the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March. Once he returned, he was No. 141 in the FedExCup standings.

“I was never going to [catch up] with these elevated events with no cut, missing two of them [the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational]. It was going to be a pretty big thing to overcome,” he said. “And then I missed another three different events [the American Express, Farmers Insurance Open and WM Phoenix Open] where I usually get a lot of points.”

The nine-time Tour winner has the sport’s longest made-cut streak (69). However, in 13 starts this season, he has only three top 10s (the Masters, Genesis Scottish Open and British Open). The last two were in his last two starts, entering the playoffs with momentum to make the Tour Championship. But now he’s in danger of missing out on East Lake for the first time in his career.

“Obviously, I’d like to get there,” Schauffele said. “Right now, I’m working on getting a little better. The bar is pretty low at the moment. As it stands, top 10 here [in Memphis] is probably six under at the end of today, so I need to look at making up six shots. It wouldn’t take much to make me happy at this point. Just have to do better.”

Schauffele isn’t the only player at risk of having his season end prematurely, though. Entering the weekend at the FedEx St. Jude, Matt Fitzpatrick is projected at No. 43, Wyndham Clark is 46th and Jordan Spieth is the last man in at No. 50, while Rickie Fowler and Tony Finau sit on the outside.