MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The FedExCup playoffs are still two weeks away but there is one season-long race that will be wrapping up next week at the Wyndham Championship.

The first-year Wyndham Rewards competition concludes next week at the regular-season finale with the top 10 players on the season-long points race splitting a $10 million bonus with $2 million going to the points leader.

That points leader is currently Brooks Koepka who has 2,337 FedExCup points. Nos. 2, 3 and 4 on the list – Matt Kuchar, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele, respectively – could overtake Koepka with 550 points going to the winner of this week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

It could set up an interesting decision for Koepka or the other contenders next week. Although none of the top 4 players are currently committed to play the Wyndham Championship, they could add the event if winning the regular-season title is an option.

“There is a scenario [I would play the Wyndham],” Koepka said. “If I do what I'm supposed to do this week and win, then everything takes care of itself. There is a possibility that next week I could be out there [at the Wyndham Championship] and playing for a lot.”

McIlroy will not be at the Wyndham Championship. He said on Tuesday at TPC Southwind his wife, Erica, planned a vacation next week to celebrate his birthday which was in May.

“It was the only open spot on the schedule for me,” McIlroy said.

Paul Casey is currently the only player in the top 10 on the points list committed to play next week’s event.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The contrast was impossible to ignore.

The last time Rory McIlroy held a club he was grinding his way to an emotional missed cut at The Open amongst thousands of Northern Irish fans on a chilly afternoon at Royal Portrush.

By comparison, Wednesday’s practice round at TPC Southwind probably felt like another planet, with temperatures in the high 80s, about a dozen fans tagging along and not a care in the world.

Given the enormity of the moment last Friday, he probably welcomed the relative obscurity as well as the warm temperatures. “I would have worn shorts but I’ve been in Europe for the last few weeks and my legs haven’t seen sun,” he laughed.

McIlroy has had plenty of time to unpack everything that happened at Royal Portrush. An opening tee shot on Thursday that sailed helplessly out of bounds on his way to a stunning first-round 79, a Day 2 charge that ignited the home crowd but fell one stroke short of a weekend tee time and the flood of emotions that made last Friday’s effort a truly unique moment, not just for the Northern Irishman but also for countless fans.

He’s thought about all of it.

The debilitating lows of Thursday’s round. The surreal highs of Friday’s 65 and how in the tearful heat of the moment there was a lesson to be learned that he won’t soon forget.

“I had to probably stop myself from crying about four times on the back nine [on Friday], not because of the situation I found myself in, but just because of the support,” he admitted.

He’s never had to do that in a career that spans more than a decade and 25 victories around the world, including four majors. Not when he won his first major at the 2011 U.S. Open, not when he won the Open Championship three years later. Never.

McIlroy’s finish at Royal Portrush wasn’t infused with so much passion because he missed the cut at the first Open played in Northern Ireland in nearly seven decades. It was special because of what it taught him.

“I just sort of had to take a step back and be like, wow, I sort of mean a lot to these people, and that felt really good, in fairness,” he said. “It's such a weird thing to say, but to think about a missed cut being one of the best experiences you ever had on a golf course, so I guess there is some sort of silver lining in there.”

Ben Hogan once said a hook “nauseates” him and it was “like a rattlesnake in your pocket.” That’s the way modern professionals view missed cuts, particularly professionals at McIlroy’s level. That this missed cut came on a course where he once shot a course-record 61 when he was 16 years old only magnified that disappointment.

But for McIlroy, who has been on a journey of self-realization in recent years, it was a chance to see himself in a different light.

He didn’t know last week’s Open would be such a seminal moment in his career. It all began like every other week on the PGA Tour.

“It's so funny, I was so relaxed in the warm-up, I was so relaxed on the putting green 10 minutes before,” he recalled.

It wasn’t until he stepped to the first tee with the wildly partisan crowds packed tightly all along the fairway that things changed. His pulse quickened, his hand began shaking as he pushed his tee into the ancient turf, his mind raced.

“I was surprised with how nervous I was, but it came on so rapidly,” he said. “That was the thing that was different about it. It wasn't like it built up during the warm-up; I was totally fine. And then once my name was announced, I was like, ‘Oh, this is a little different.’”

Every hole was different.

The crowd cheered his every step, even after a quadruple bogey-8 at the first. They cheered his birdies at No. 7 and 8. They even cheered after he made a triple-bogey 7 at the last.

That support was even more magnified on Friday when he made the turn at 2 under for the day and things became unhinged after three consecutive birdies to start the back nine. He relished every moment and allowed himself to become lost in the excitement.

It was in many ways completely out of character for McIlroy, who has always attempted – like most professionals – to remain above the sentimental fray. But as he allowed himself to ride the emotional momentum, his play improved.

“Sometimes I've tried to take the emotion out of playing golf. I try to think logically and try to be very stoic about the whole thing, but I was emotional on Friday and I was still able to play good golf in spite of that,” he admitted. “I thought that was a good lesson as well. Sometimes a bit of emotion on the course isn't a bad thing. It's just about how you can handle it and resetting in between shots.”

McIlroy has had plenty of time to process everything that happened at Royal Portrush. He and his wife, Erica, spent the last few days moving into a new house in south Florida. “My wife was doing most of it,” he said with a smile.

But if he didn’t spend much time unpacking boxes he did use the quiet moments to unpack all of the emotions of last week. He may not have made the cut at Royal Portrush but he did learn plenty about himself and his place in the game.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Even after his emotional missed cut at The Open last week, Rory McIlroy said he did watch the final round at Royal Portrush and that he traded text messages with champion Shane Lowry.

“He texted me on Friday night and sort of gave me a couple of words of encouragement, and that was nice. He said to me, ‘I'll see you in Memphis [at this week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational],’” McIlroy said. “I said, ‘Well, I hope I don't see you in Memphis because hopefully you’re still drinking out of the claret jug.’”

Lowry withdrew from this week’s World Golf Championship to stay at home in Ireland and enjoy what has been a prolonged celebration.

“I texted him straight after and I sort of said to him, look, it's going to change your life,” McIlroy said. “It's so different. You saw it yesterday when he went back home to his hometown and the amount of people that came out to see him. It is a life-changer, especially doing it there at Portrush. He's going to be a national hero for the rest of his life.”

McIlroy said he plans to take Lowry out for dinner in two weeks in New York during The Northern Trust.

“I said to him, ‘I need to bring you out for dinner and have to have a couple sort of celebratory drinks,’” McIlroy said. “I'm looking forward to seeing him and just so happy for him.”