Day chases FedEx glory
JASON Day is primed to launch his bid to become Australia’s first FedEx Cup champion, but several of his countrymen have been relegated to the cutthroat Web.com Tour finals.
Former world No.1 Day joins Marc Leishman, Cameron Smith and Adam Scott in advancing to the US PGA Tour’s $US67m ($A91.6m) playoffs series, after the regular season concluded at the Wynd- ham Championship yesterday.
Day has been a perennial contender in the post-season but has fallen short of the $US10 million bonus awarded to the leading points scorer following the Tour Championship.
Ranked sixth in the standings courtesy of two US Tour wins this year, Day’s focus will be pushing into the top-five seeds who automatically take out the FedEx Cup with a Tour Championship victory.
His quest starts at this week’s Northern Trust tourna- ment in New Jersey, which Day won during his sensational 2015 season.
Day says he is inspired by the challenge of winning the FedEx Cup, which has eluded Australian players since the series was created in 2007.
“I’m looking forward to the FedEx Cup playoffs,” Day said.
“I’ve worked really hard this season and while two wins have me in a great position, I need to focus and play some pretty decent golf these next four events.”
The playoffs begin with the top-125 FedEx finishers qualifying for the Northern Trust, while retaining their playing privileges for next season.
The fields then reduce for another two events before the top 30 advance to the Tour Championship finale in Atlanta, Georgia in September.
Needing a top-10 result at Wyndham to sneak inside the 125, Aaron Baddeley tied 24th and finished at 132nd on the FedEx standings.
But the four-time US Tour winner has a number of options to battle his way back to the top flight. Finishing within the 125-150 bracket affords Baddeley conditional status on the US Tour in 2019 and he will likely receive 12-15 starts.
Fellow Australian Matt Jones missed that category by a cruel two FedEx points, dropping to 151st.
But Baddeley and Jones will join Cameron Percy (168) and Stuart Appleby (197) in the secondary Web.com finals, where they can play their way back to the main circuit by finishing inside the top 25 on the moneylist over the four events.