Aug 24, 2016
Plenty on the line at FedEx Cup
Ryder Cup spots are very much in play for the Americans in golf’s playoffs, Bob Weeks writes.
By Bob Weeks
The FedEx Cup turns 10 this year and it’s safe to say that it’s finally found a system that not only works, but often intrigues.
While not everyone seems to understand the intricacies of just how the points are handed out – players included – they know the cutoffs and what’s at stake at the end of it all.
Golf’s playoffs won’t rival the Stanley Cup or the Final Four, but they have managed to catch our attention. And this year, there’s even more on the line as Ryder Cup spots are very much in play for the Americans.
The FedEx Cup is rather straight forward: four tournaments, cutting down along the way with the winner grabbing a cool $10 million from the $35 million bonus pool. That’s in addition to the regular payouts for the weekly tournament performance.
First up is this week’s Barclays, where the top 125 finishers from the season will tee it up. That will be cut to 100 for next week’s Deutsche Bank, followed by 70 players for the BMW Championship. The last 30 players move on to the finale, the Tour Championship.
“Everyone’s got their mind on East Lake [site of the Tour Championship],” said Justin Rose, fresh off a gold medal in Rio, to reporters in New York. “Everyone knows how the FedEx Cup is structured. Everyone knows if they are in the top five going into the Tour Championship, you’ve got that opportunity to win it.”
That final five in the ranking is a definite advantage. A player in that group heading into the last event can capture the overall championship simply by winning the Tour Championship.
For the first few events, however, there’s almost as much attention on the bottom of the leaderboard as the top. The Tour has done a good job of providing live projected finishes and showing the movement after almost every swing. The race to make it inside the cutoff is sometimes more exciting than the one to win the tournament.
While it’s hard to move from the bottom all the way to the top, the possibility exists thanks to a couple of tweaks the Tour made to the system over the past few years.
Two years ago, Billy Horschel was 69th before the first event and managed to play well enough to win the FedEx Cup. But the biggest mover was in 2009, when Heath Slocum went from 124th up to third after winning the first tournament of the playoffs before eventually finishing eighth.
He’s the inspiration for this year’s crop of bubble boys, which includes Graham DeLaet who sits at 119th. Seung-Yul Noh is 125th, a spot ahead of veteran David Toms.
At the other end of the list sit the big names: Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott and Jordan Spieth. All are well rested after passing on the Olympics. They want to hold on to their places to keep control over being able to win at the Tour Championship.
And then there is the loud sidebar — the American Ryder Cup spots. The first eight will be determined after this week’s event.
Johnson, Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Jimmy Walker and Brooks Koepka are pretty much locks at this point. The next six spots are separated by just 400 points. That group includes Brandt Snedeker, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and bronze medal winner Matt Kuchar.
Three captain’s picks will be made by Davis Love following the BMW Championship and one more after the Tour Championship.
For most of the field however, it’s about the bottom and the top. Keep your nose above the water line and you keep playing. Fall outside it and your season is done. That part is pretty simple to understand, although not quite as easy to execute.