Stars turn out in race for FedExCup
NEWTOWN SQUARE » There was the scintillating 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, easily the most important golf tournament held in the Philadelphia region since the early 1980s.
But this week’s BMW Championship at Aronimink Golf Club is surely the runnerup. In an area where the PGA Tour hasn’t stopped regularly in nearly 40 years, this is a big deal. So big, in fact, that red-hot American Bryson DeChambeau is here even though he can’t fall from his position atop the FedExCup points list no matter what happens.
“Yeah, I thought about taking the week off,” said DeChambeau, who just captured his third win of the PGA season at the Dell Technologies Championship. “I couldn’t do that to the BMW and I couldn’t do that to all the fans and the sponsors that have helped put this event on.”
Featuring an elite field of the top 70 players in the FedExCup standings, what happens over 72 holes beginning Thursday will determine the 30 who will advance to the Tour Championship in two weeks at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club and its whopping $10 million payout. This, the fourth of five in the playoff series, is the biggest event Aronimink has hosted since the 1962 PGA Championship, and Sunday’s winner will take home $1.62 million of the total purse of $9 million.
“To me the FedExCup and what that en- tails, every point is going to count towards the end all the way to East Lake and every stroke is going to count,” said Tony Finau, who is currently No. 4 on the FedExCup list.
The star power is overwhelming, with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy on hand, to name a few. The two-time defending U.S. Open champ, Brooks Koepka, is fresh off a win at the PGA Championship and is always a threat.
So is the world’s top-ranked player, Dustin Johnson, who trails only DeChambeau in the FedEx race. The 24-year-old DeChambeau and his uniquely simple swing arrived in Delaware County with back-toback wins under his belt, which hadn’t happened since Justin Thomas (also here) did it in 2017.
“It would be easy for me to say, ‘hey, I’m