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TSN Senior Reporter

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Imagine that your job hinged on how you performed at work over the next four days. Perform well and you get to continue for another year. Do a poor job and you’re out on the street.

One week determines one year.

That’s how it will be for a group of Canadian golfers, all fighting to stay on the top golf circuit in the game. They can be excused if the palms on the grips are a little sweatier than normal and if they peek at the leaderboards a little more often as the week unfolds.

Corey Conners, Nick Taylor, Ben Silverman, David Hearn and Mackenzie Hughes all sit outside the top 125 points earners on the FedEx Cup standings. That’s the water line for players to advance to the PGA Tour’s playoffs and, for some, to keep their jobs.

The top 125 on the FedEx Cup standings retain playing privileges on the PGA Tour for another year. In addition, they advance to the first round of the playoffs, where the purses are inflated and the winner takes home $1.575 million (US).

This week, all five Canucks will be playing the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., and desperately looking to move inside that magic number.

Only Hughes, the 27-year-old from Hamilton, is assured of playing on the PGA Tour in 2018-19, that coming as a result of his win last season at the RSM Classic. Yet, like the other four, if he wants his season to extend beyond this week, he needs to have a good performance.

Taylor started his season well but stalled as spring turned to summer. In one stretch, he missed the cut in 9 of 12 events. More recently, things have improved and he’s made the cut in his last five starts while shoring up his game.

The 30-year-old Winnipeg native knows what it feels like to miss out. In 2016, he ended the year in 129th spot although he was exempt for the following year due to his win at the Sandersons Farms championship. But he missed out on playing the FedEx Cup events.

This year, he has no safety net and needs a strong performance.

Conners and Silverman are in their first years on the PGA Tour and that can be a difficult spot. Each week, they put in a crash course in learning the nuances of a course on which veteran players may have played more than a hundred rounds.

Despite that, both have had good results in short spurts on the tour.

Conners, 26, played in the final group on Sunday at the Valspar Championship before sliding to a tie for 16th. Usually a consistent player, he arrives having missed his last three cuts, one of which was at last month’s RBC Canadian Open.

The Listowel, Ont., native sits 128th on the bubble and could easily play his way into the playoffs with a good tournament.

Silverman, a Toronto native, is 134th on the FedEx Cup standings and has been inside the top 12 in two of his last three starts. He also has two top-10 finishes on his record, but both came last fall in the start of the wrap-around season.

The importance of moving into the top 125 can’t be understated for the 30-year-old.

“A good week locks up my card,” Silverman said. “Allows me to plan my schedule ahead of time next year, so I don't have to travel like a crazy man. I can play maybe 22 events a year instead of 32, which would be fantastic.”

Taylor, Conners and Silverman will enjoy some type of status on the PGA Tour next year. Players who finish 126 to 150 on the points list get partial status. That’s the category 39-year-old Hearn played on this season and he made 20 starts not including this week.

The veteran, who will make his 250th career start this week, sits in 156th position as he enters the Wyndham Championship. The Brampton, Ont., product is desperately looking to improve his position to move inside the top 150.

While that category isn’t perfect, Hearn made it work this season.

“It's been a bit trickier, obviously, with not having my fully-exempt status this year, but I had a pretty good idea of what the year was going to look like at the beginning of the year,” explained Hearn. “I knew I'd be playing a lot in the summer, and that's kind of the way it's been. I really just got off to a bit of a slow start, but I feel like right now, the last month, month and a half, I've really been playing some nice rounds.

“I'm just focused on trying to do the best I can each and every day,” said Hearn. “I'll get the full status back in no time. If it doesn't happen by the end of this, then the Web finals if I have to. But I feel very good about my game right now, and I'm very confident.”

The Web.com Tour finals are the last option for those who don’t get into the top 125, but it’s not an enviable one. Players who finish from 126 to 200 are eligible for the shootout that involves that group and the top 75 golfers from the Web.com Tour money list.

It’s four events in four weeks for an already tired group with 25 PGA Tour spots available. Worst-case scenario means some sort of status on the Web.com Tour for next year.

It’s a tough situation to be in. But as every golfer will tell you, the solution to everything is simple: play better.