Big bucks and No 1 on the line
Will Day win again or will Spieth, Fowler, Stenson or Watson take the FedEx Cup?
IT IS a numbers game at this week’s Tour Championship, with numerals one, three, five and 10 dominating conversation at East Lake Golf Club.
The Tour Championship brings together the top 30 players on the FedExCup points list, but besides the nearly $1.5-million (more than R20m) first prize on offer in this fourth and last event of the play-offs, there is much more at stake.
The number one ranking in golf, which now belongs to red-hot Australian Jason Day, is yet again up for grabs.
Day, winner of four of his last six events and five overall in 2015, ascended to that coveted perch atop world golf with his spectacular win at last week’s BMW Championship, where he blew away the field.
But the title of golf number one has been passed around like a hot potato between the Big Three of fourtimes Major winner Rory McIlroy, Masters and US Open winner Jordan Spieth and PGA Championship winner Day in recent weeks and this event could settle the issue for the rest of 2015.
Meanwhile, the top five players in the FedExCup list – Day, Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson and Bubba Watson – can clinch the play-offs title and $10-million (R130m) bonus should they win the elite Tour Championship event, which begins today.
Besides those significant numbers, there is also the Player of the Year award at stake in a season where Day’s extraordinary finish has set up a duel with Spieth for the coveted award voted on by their PGA Tour peers.
“Of course it’s between Jason and Jordan and someone with the first letter of a ‘J’ will win it,” 2013 FedExCup winner Stenson said.
“I would still wait until this week is over before I would put my final vote on that. I think it comes down to what happens this week.”
Players Championship and Deutsche Bank Championship winner Fowler, who like Day (27), Spieth (22) and McIlroy (26) is a member of the emerging under-30 set, agrees it is a two-man race for Player of the Year.
“We have a tough decision between the two of those guys,” 26-yearold Fowler said.
Stenson, who is without a tournament victory this year, would claim the $10-million prize with a win or by finishing second or third if the other leading contenders finish down the list at East Lake.
“There’s no one that’s playing great and is sky high on confidence and no one with a bunch of Majors and no one hits it 330 off the tee, so it shouldn’t be that hard,” Stenson joked, in pointed reference to Day, pieth and McIlroy.
“But if I finish second or third and win the overall, you won’t see me leaving here crying. I know that much. Not out of sadness anyway.”
Two-times Masters winner Bubba Watson says he has learned a valuable lesson from Jason Day about aggression. But the lesson might have to be put on hold at the Tour Championship at East Lake, where, Watson says, he will be cautious to avoid the rough.
Day won last month’s PGA Championship for his maiden Major at 20-under 268, a Major record low score in relation to par. He won the BMW Championship on Sunday at 22under, and in between captured The Barclays at 19-under.
“I thought I played pretty good, but I finished 21st (at seven-under at the PGA Championship),” Watson said.
“Jason Day decided that that course was easy. Jason was obviously looking at birdies and not how tough the golf course was.”
East Lake is a different matter, said the long-hitting lefty, who flagged a more conservative approach on a course that he has struggled to conquer. “This golf course always beats me. Very tricky for me with the rough ... it catches fliers all the time for my swing. We’re trying to figure out how we can attack this course the right way, and play more conservative.”
Watson has a lot riding on a win. He is fifth on the points list, and along with the others in the top five victory would clinch the bonus.
Louis Oosthuizen is the only South African in the line-up.