Tour Championship 2011: Keegan Bradley Leads After One Round

PGA Champion Keegan Bradley leads The Tour Championship by two strokes after the first round of play. Behind him is Jason Dufner, who’s probably getting sick and tired of looking at Bradley’s backside in big-time tournaments, and the world’s top-ranked player, Luke Donald.

Despite the Tour Championship not being officially declared a major, it does carry the biggest purse in golf — $10 million — and it plays a huge role in who wins the vaunted Fed Ex Cup. And, oh yeah, there are only 30 golfers in it, so it’s super easy to keep track of all of them.

The entire Tour Championship leaderboard can be found here, at PGATour.com.

For more on this tournament, keep it on our 2011 Tour Championship StoryStream. For more on golf in general, check out SB Nation Golf and Waggle Room.

With most of the big time contenders for the FedEx Cup playoffs championship still to tee off in the 2011 Tour Championship, Jason Dufner has the early lead in Thursday’s first round. Dufner is three-under par through six holes and at the moment sits in first place on points in the FedEx Cup standings. Hunter Mahan is behind him at two-under and is currently seventh in the points. Five players, including Phil Mickelson, sit behind them at one-under.

If the men still to tee off put up good scores, Dufner’s projected points lead won’t last long. Luke Donald, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Webb Simpson were the top four in the standings before the day began and have not yet teed off. Donald and Rose start their day at 1:45 pm ET, while Johnson and Simpson tee off at 1:55 pm ET.

It all comes down to this: 30 players remain in what was once a 125-player field to decide the FedEx Cup champion. Webb Simpson currently leads the field with after finishing with the most points in the previous three FedEx Cup playoff events. He’ll start this tournament with 2,500 points, but any of the 30 players in the field can win the title.

As the leader, Simpson will tee off last on Thursday and be paired with Dustin Johnson, who is currently second in the standings. Accordingly, Bo Van Pelt and Fredrik Jacobson are first off the tee, as they are the Nos. 30 and 29 players, respectively. The players will be re-paired after each round in order of their standing on the leaderboard.