The BMW Championship is being played this week as the PGA Tour reaches the second-to-last event of the 2026 FedEx Cup playoffs, and the biggest bonus money is about to be settled. The tour will pay out nearly $100 million in FedEx Cup bonuses after the BMW Championship on Sunday, before the season-ending Tour Championship.
That is why readers are asking where is the BMW Championship being played now: the event is no longer just another stop in the playoffs. It is the final checkpoint for the season-long bonus race, with the top 125 players in the final FedEx Cup standings carrying listed payouts into the week. The first-place bonus is $23 million, and Scottie Scheffler already locked up that prize with his win at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.
The numbers show how much is still at stake even with the top slot decided. Second place in the bonus standings is worth $13 million total, while 10th place gets $1.31 million, a gap of more than $11.6 million. That spread is why the BMW Championship matters today: it is the point where the bonus list is finalized, even though the race for the top payout is over.
Over the last two seasons, the PGA Tour changed the timing of its rules so the biggest FedEx Cup bonus payments now come after the BMW Championship rather than later. That shift leaves the Tour Championship to settle the championship itself, but not the bonus pool that has already been locked in by then. The player who finishes on top at East Lake will still earn $10 million, which keeps the final tournament important without changing the fact that the largest check has already gone to Scheffler.
The tension is simple: the BMW Championship can still move the rest of the money around, but it cannot reopen the top of the board. That makes Sunday a deadline, not a finish line. Once the bonuses are distributed, the Tour Championship becomes the last chapter of the season, not the place where the biggest FedEx Cup money is decided.
