The BMW Championship starts tomorrow at Cog Hill just outside of Chicago, and at the halfway point of the PGA Tour playoffs a few of Nike Golf’s athletes still have a shot at winning the cup. A big question remains to be answered — will it be Tiger Woods? A bit of a surprise is that Tiger has been bumped out of first place in the standings by last week’s Deutsche Bank Champion Steve Stricker. With two events remaining to be played it is sure to be an entertaining run to see who ends up the FedEx Cup Champion.
Steve Stricker holds a 909 point lead (coincidentally I’m writing this post on 09/09/09) over Tiger going into this week’s BMW championship. Both players are playing great golf — Stricker has shown that he can perform in the playoffs, last week proving he can close out a championship, making birdie on the last hole to take the title. Tiger has been fighting a balky putter, but his tee to green play has been solid, and I anticipate him stepping up his play for the final two playoff events. Both players are looking good to be right there at the finish at East Lake, but Tiger is still my favorite to take home the FedEx Cup trophy.
A few other Nike athletes still have a mathematical shot at winning the cup. Lucas Glover sits in 14th place, down 5 spots from the week before. Lucas will need a high finish (like top 3) and a win to end up on top after The Tour Championship. Stewart Cink (25th) will most likely need wins at both Cog Hill and East Lake (and Stricker and Woods to falter) to win the cup. Justin Leonard (31st) and Anthony Kim (34th) both need to move up (Justin 1 spot and Anthony 4 spots) just to make the top 30 and The Tour Championship – and both need wins at the last two events and Stricker and Woods stumbles to come out on top.
The final two playoff events promise to be entertaining indeed. With strong performances in the last two events, any of the top 10 players in the FedEx Cup standings could overtake the leaders and win the cup. But the 10 million dollar questions are: 1. Will a Nike athlete be left standing with the FedEx Cup trophy and the winner’s check? And 2: Will it be Tiger?
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I have to admit, this series has been more exciting than I thought it would be. Give me any final day with Woods, Stricker, Verplank, Harrington, Z. Johnson and, maybe even Phil, and it does not get much better than that.
With TW playing five of his last eight rounds about as poorly as he is able and STILL be there tells me he is due. Of course, you don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict that.
I also like the fact they are paying the majority of the prize money upfront and only deferring a portion of it.
Great points Vince, thanks for the comment. It does seem that the format is working this year, although in my opinion the points still need a bit of tweaking – Heath Slocum currently being third is a good example.
I have to admit, this is the first year that the FedEx Cup has really peaked my interest. It’s good to see that all 4 tournaments will make a difference.
I didn’t think that it would be anything worth talking about after the first year when Tiger took one week off and Phil took another off and they were the 2 to beat in the final.
You can call it (The entire PGA SEASON) The Tiger Woods Variety Show.This guy owns the PGA TOUR !