FedEx Cup Update: Final Tournament this Weekend
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by Wrmjr
The final tournament of the FedEx Cup -- The Tour Championship --begins Thursday and finishes this weekend. The final field of 30 players are all guaranteed a payday (there is no cut), and all our exempt from tournament requirements for 2008. Relative unknown Camilo Villegas managed two top-10 finishes in the last 3 tournaments to earn his place among the 30 spots. In many ways, this playoff format means more to players like Villegas than the players at the top of the points list.
But let's be serious, all anyone really cares about is who will win the $10 million annuity--the largest single award in sports--of this inaugural playoff series. Of the 30 golfers who can play in the tournament, only 5 have a chance to win the overall Cup: Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker, Phil Mickelson, Rory Sabbatini and K.J. Choi. Here is what needs to happen for each of them to win, from least likely to most likely:
- K.J. Choi: must win the tournament and have Woods finish at or near the bottom, have Mickelson finish lower than 2nd and have Stricker finish lower than 3rd.
- Rory Sabbatini: must win the tournament and have Woods finish at or near the bottom and have both Mickelson and Stricker finish lower than 2nd.
- Phil Mickelson: if Mickelson wins the tournament, Woods must finish below 2nd; if Mickelson finishes 2nd, Woods must somewhere around 8th or below and Stricker must be 3rd or lower.
- Steve Stricker: If Stricker wins the tournament, he wins the cup--what Woods does doesn't matter; if Stricker finishes 2nd, Woods must finish below 3rd; If Stricker finishes 3rd, Woods must finish somewhere in the 20s.
- Tiger Woods: wins in all other scenarios.
Note that these build on one another (e.g. if Mickelson wins, it doesn't matter what Stricker does) and that the Fed-Ex Cup site does not list the points for each finishing rank, so any finishes below 5th place are estimates.
Clearly, it is pretty much a 3-man race. Stricker has moved himself into this position by playing very well--he is the only player to be in the top 10 for each of the 3 previous tournaments. Woods and Mickelson both decided not to play one of the tournaments. This leaves us with a playoff in which 2 of the 3 front runners sat out a week. If the Fed-Ex Cup comes back for another year, I hope they'll make an adjustment to penalize players who don't play in one of the tournaments. Not only would this make a difference at the top of the leader board, it would make a difference at the bottom too. Padraig Harrington took the 30th slot, and he didn't play last week. Had he been penalized, Luke Donald would be playing this week and have a season-long exemption next year.
