FedEx forward: Who's in, out for BMW

• By Ryan Ballengee
• Sep 6, 2011 10:46 AM ET

Webb Simpson has been doing a victory Hokey Pokey on the PGA Tour in the last three weeks. He earned the first win of his career just ahead of the playoffs at the Wyndham Championship, then took his second victory in a playoff inside the playoffs on Labor Day at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

With no other player this year having more than two wins, perhaps Simpson’s have come at the most important time. Simpson now leads the FedEx Cup by 897 points over Barclays winner Dustin Johnson, who entered the four-event series without a win on the year.

Johnson and Matt Kuchar moved down a spot to make way for Simpson, who entered the week in fourth position.

In between his wins, Simpson finished T-10 at The Barclays. He’s putting up Luke Donald kind of numbers. Speaking of the world No. 1, his T-3 at Boston jumped him up a spot into Simpson’s pre-week position.

Only three other players can now catch Simpson with a win at the BMW Championship in two weeks. Brandt Snedeker moved up one to fifth and Nick Watney dropped to seventh from third, likely making him rue the 11 he took on the second hole on Monday.

In between the two is Jason Day, who improved from 15th to sixth on the back of his T-3. Still winless on the season, Day joins Kuchar as legitimate contenders to become the first winless FedEx Cup champion.

Despite his disappointing finish, Bubba Watson moved up from 16 to 12 in the standings.

With the top-70 in the ranking moving onto Chicago in two weeks, playoff runs ended for some familiar names and guys that we got to know a little better these last two weeks.

The Cinderella story of Williams McGirt is over, having missed the top-70 by coming in at 83rd. His move of 13 places this week was not good enough to hop over the threshold he needed to see Cog Hill.

A couple of names survived the second playoff cut, though. Though losing to Simpson, Chez Reavie moved up from 87th to ninth with the points he earned by tying the eventual winner in regulation.

Aside from Reavie, seven guys played their way into the BMW Championship with their performance in Boston. (Blake Adams from 81st to 57th, Chad Campbell from 73rd to 58th, Andres Romero from 72nd to 59th, Johnson Wagner from 88th to 67th, Ernie Els from 99th to 68th, Geoff Ogilvy from 91st to 69th and Chris Stroud from 75th to 70th.)

That magnificent seven (as well as Reavie) knocked out eight players from a spot at the BMW Championship, including Pat Perez, Kevin Na, Kevin Streelman, Robert Garrigus, Harrison Frazar, Charlie Wi, Anthony Kim and Kris Blanks.