Adam Scott has shown his grit to scrape into the PGA Tour's rich 30-man Tour Championship with a steely final-round 71 at the BMW Championship.
Scott needed to make a pressure-filled par from a greenside bunker on the last hole to tie for fifth for the second straight event and secure his place in this week's season finale, which offers $US18 million ($A26.1 million) to the winner.
With even the last-placed finisher in the 30-man field in Atlanta receiving $US500,000 ($A727,000), Scott's clutch long-range bunker shot on Sunday was worth at least half a million US dollars as it tipped him into the field in 29th spot, having started the week at 45th.
"I guess that's the beauty of the FedEx Cup playoffs the way they are. You can scratch it around a lot for the year and have a couple good weeks and get heavily rewarded by getting to East Lake and being in that top 30 and all the perks that come with it," Scott said.
Australia's former world No.1 became the only player to fight his way through both FedEx Cup playoffs tournaments in the past two weeks after starting from outside the required ranking number.
It was no mean feat, especially after hovering on the edge of the top-30 bubble throughout the final round and needing to play an even more difficult approach shot on the the last than his sand save.
Scott's tee shot landed inches out of a bunker, leaving him to stand in the fairway pot and take a baseball-style swing from about two feet below the ball.
"You can debate which is the harder shot. It shows you that it was a tough day for me because neither were a good position. I think I was a little unlucky off the tee shot," Scott said.
"Anything could have happened with the second shot. It came out not well, but it could have come out worse."
Scott went into last week's St Jude Championship in Memphis languishing in 77th place in FedEx Cup standings but rose to 45th after finishing joint fifth to earn his BMW Championship spot.
He finished at 10 under on Sunday, four shots behind winner Patrick Cantlay, who edged out fellow American Scott Stallings to become the first player in the 16-year history of the FedEx Cup to successfully defend a playoffs tournament title after closing with a two-under 69.
"This week I felt like I played really high-quality golf," Scott said.
"I was out there yesterday with (world No.1) Scottie Scheffler, who's obviously played incredible this year, and I felt like I was playing at that high, high level again, and I haven't been in so many of those situations this year.
"But I felt like my game stacked up, and I felt like a top player."
Cantlay is also the defending FedEx Cup champion and will enter the final tournament of the 2021-22 season as second seed behind Scheffler.
Scheffler posted a final-round 70 to tie for third on Sunday at 11 under with fellow American Xander Schauffele (71).
Scott shared fifth with Korean K.H. Lee (65) and Canadian Corey Conners (69) to qualify for the Atlanta finale for the first time since 2019.
Australia's world No.2 Cameron Smith, who sat out this week with hip soreness, will start as the sixth seed at the Tour Championship, which offers a total prize pool of $US33.43 million ($A48.7 million).
In the handicap scoring format, Smith will start the Tour Championship at -4, six strokes behind Scheffler, with Scott at even par.
Compatriots Lucas Herbert, Marc Leishman and Cam Davis didn't do enough in the BMW Championship to make the season finale.
Herbert's final-round 69 lifted him to joint-15th at seven under but outside the top-30 overall standings in 43rd spot.
Leishman (70) was tied for 28th at four under, leaving him 58th in the FedEx rankings, with Davis (71) equal 35th at two under and 55th in the season-long standings.
