By Mike Blum
The 2012 FedExCup Playoffs begin this month with the first of three tournaments, leading up to the Tour Championship at East Lake Sept. 20-23.
After being sidetracked in 2010 and ’11 by a combination of scandal, injury and sub-standard play, Tiger Woods is back in his accustomed position atop the FedExCup standings, and is assured of making his first start at East Lake since 2009.
Woods won the FedExCup title in 2007, the first year it was added to the PGA Tour schedule, and again in ’09. Vijay Singh was the ’08 FedExCup champion, with the PGA Tour making some changes to the points allocation after its first two years ended with the Tour Championship having little or no impact on the eventual champion.
The last two years produced ample amounts of drama, as Jim Furyk won both the Tour Championship and FedExCup in 2010, with Bill Haas repeating that feat in memorable fashion last year.
Woods is in position to be ranked No. 1 in the standings when the FedExCup Playoffs begin Aug. 23-26 with The Barclays at Bethpage Black, the host course of the 2002 and ’09 U.S. Open.
The Playoffs return to Boston the following week for its annual Labor Day finish in the Deutsche Bank Championship, with the BMW Championship being played at Crooked Stick, the site of John Daly’s remarkable PGA Championship victory in 1991.
After a week off, the top 30 players in the FedExCup standings will gather in Atlanta for the Tour Championship, looking to take home first place money of $1,440,000, along with the $10 million bonus for finishing the year at the top of the standings.
The points the players earn during the regular season carry over into the Playoffs, where the points are multiplied by five over the regular season (500 points for a regular season tournament winner, 2,500 for the Playoffs).
The top 125 players on the points list after the PGA Tour stop in Greensboro in mid-August qualify for The Barclays, with the fields reduced to 100 for the Deutsche Bank and 70 for the BMW Championship. Typically, no more than a handful of players from outside the top 30 after the regular season will make it to East Lake, with the leading regular season finishers all but assured spots in the Tour Championship.
With just two events remaining on the regular season schedule, the only players close to Woods in the standings were St. Simons Island resident Zach Johnsonand Jason Dufner, who lost in a playoff in last year’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club.
The PGA Championship is one of two events left on the FedExCup schedule, and a few other players were within range of Woods if they were to win it, among them Hunter Mahan and Masters champion Bubba Watson.
Matt Kuchar, also a St. Simons resident, was 6th in the standings after a near miss in 2010, with 2011 PGA champion Keegan Bradley 7th after his WGC Bridgestone win. Rory McIlroy was 8th, British Open champion Ernie Els 10th and U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson 11th. Two-time Tour Championship winner Phil Mickelson was 13th.
With the regular season nearing its conclusion, much of the focus is on the players battling to move inside the top 125 on the points list and secure a spot in The Barclays.
Three years ago, Alpharetta resident Heath Slocum narrowly qualified for the Playoffs, ending the regular season 124 in the standings. Slocum proceeded to outduel the likes of Woods, Els, Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington (all by one stroke) to win The Barclays and vault all the way to 3rd on the points list.
Slocum finds himself in a similar situation this year at 126 in the standings going to the PGA. He was one of six players with Georgia ties hovering around the top 125, with Jason Bohn, Vaughn Taylor, Erik Compton and Stewart Cink between 121 and 131.
Other players of note outside the top 125 included Tim Clark, 2008 Tour Championship winner Camilo Villegas, Y.E. Yang, Stuart Appleby, 2004 Tour Championship winner Retief Goosen, Justin Leonard and Angel Cabrera.
With three victories this season – two on courses where he’s won multiple times (Bay Hill and Muirfield Village) and the other in a tournament he hosts (AT&T National at Congressional) – Woods has re-established himself as one of the game’s elite players.
A disappointing showing in the Masters and poor weekend efforts in the U.S. and British Opens have taken a bit of the tarnish off Woods’ otherwise glittering comeback. But his return to the top of the World Rankings has energized a sport that many feel is largely reliant on Woods to create some buzz.
Woods will begin the Playoffs either first in the standings or very close to the top spot. But the last two players to end the regular season at No. 1 (Els in 2010,Nick Watney last year) both struggled in the Playoffs and slipped to 9th on the final list.
Furyk was 3rd at the end of the regular season in 2010, needing to win at East Lake to edge out Kuchar, who moved up from 9th to take the FedExCup lead after a victory in The Barclays.
Haas came all the way from 15th at the end of the regular season to win the FedExCup last year, with Simpson moving up from 3rd with a victory in Boston before he faltered at East Lake and was overtaken by Haas.
It took the PGA Tour a few years to refine the FedExCup’s points allocation and reset format after the first three seasons produced little of the excitement expected when the new system was installed.
That was due in part to the dominance of Woods in ’07 and ’09 and Singh in ’08, with the decision to delay the reset of points until after the third Playoffs event ensuring that the Tour Championship would determine the FedExCup champion.
Only four players have multiple victories this season, with Zach Johnson, Dufner and Mahan collecting two wins each to join Woods in that category. The first three majors produced three different champions, running that streak to 16 in a row, and the list of PGA Tour winners includes names both familiar (Stricker,Brandt Snedeker, Mickelson, Haas, McIlroy, Justin Rose, Luke Donald, Rickie Fowler, Kuchar and Dustin Johnson) and unfamiliar (Kyle Stanley, Marc Leishman and Ted Potter).
Adding to the pressure of the Playoffs is the battle for the four wild card picks which will be made by U.S, Ryder Cup captain Davis Love. Going into the Bridgestone Invitational, the eight automatic qualifiers were Woods, Dufner, Watson, Bradley, Simpson, Zach Johnson, Kuchar and Mickelson, leaving Love with five to eight contenders for his four picks.
Mahan, Stricker, Furyk and Fowler, were 9, 10, 11 and 12 in the standings, with Dustin Johnson 14th. Snedeker, Bo Van Pelt and Haas were also contenders, but Love would have to leave off at least two of the five “name” players outside the top 8 to add one of the latter trio.
The Ryder Cup will be played at Medinah the week after the Tour Championship, with the Tour Championship qualifiers facing a fifth high profile event in six weeks. All 16 of the potential U.S. Ryder Cup team members were ranked in the top 24 of the FedExCup with three weeks left in the regular season.