Tiger Woods, despite collapsing to the ground in pain and finishing in a tie for second in Sunday’s final round of The Barclays, remains No. 1 by the slimmest of margins in FedExCup points heading into this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship.
Tiger Woods maintains perch atop 2013 FedExCup playoff standings
Adam Scott is closing in on Tiger Woods, who holds a thin advantage in FedExCup points over the reigning Masters champ.
Stuart Franklin
Thanks to his first-place finish at Liberty National, Adam Scott moved up to No. 2 in the world and FEC rankings, and enters the second of four playoff events just 162 points behind Woods. With 70 players moving on to the BMW Championship after a bye week, PGATour.com notes that only 28 contestants in the field of the 100 first-round survivors have punched their tickets for Chicago.
That leaves 42 slots for 72 golfers -- including European Ryder Cup MVP Ian Poulter (77th), 2010 PGA champ Martin Kaymer (90th) and last year’s British Open winner Ernie Els (91st) -- to vie for over Labor Day weekend. The marquee names, including Woods, Scott, Phil Mickelson and eight others, by PGATour.com’s reckoning, are likely to advance all the way to the Tour Championship at East Lake at the end of next month even if they miss the cut in Boston.
Should Deutsche Bank defending champion Rory McIlroy, who finished tied for 19th at The Barclays, fail to make it to the Sunday-Monday finish at TPC Boston, he would likely be on the outside looking in for the rest of the FedExCup series.
In the meantime, Greg Chalmers, Erik Compton and Camilo Villegas are some of the players breathing sighs of relief for at least another week after jumping from outside the top 100 into the mix for another event. PGATour.com’s Brian Wacker did the math and observed that Chalmers bounced the highest, from 122nd to 93rd, on the strength of a T37 close at The Barclays. Compton, participating in his first playoff contest, earned a share of 43rd place and a lift from No. 117 to 94th. Villegas, whose last PGA Tour win was the 2010 Honda Classic, should send Aaron Baddeley a thank-you note after the latter made three consecutive bogeys coming in, which dropped him out of the race. Baddeley’s final-round 6-over 77 paved the way for Villegas (110th at the start of The Barclays) to eke out a T54 finish in New Jersey and a spot in Boston as the Bubble Boy. Villegas has some fond memories of the Deutsche Bank, with a seventh-place finish in 2007 and a third in 2008.
Moving out, along with Baddeley, were two New Englanders who missed the cut. Boston native James Driscoll, still waiting for his first start on home turf, dove 10 slots, from 93rd to 103rd, while J.J. Henry, from Connecticut, dropped from 97th to 106th.
For those moving on, here’s a snapshot of the 11 players PGATour.com calculates will make it to the FedExCup finale even if they record MCs this week, as well as what McIlroy must do to keep going. The scenarios include each guy’s current position and how he will fare if he wins, finishes 10th, or flies out of Logan on Saturday night:
(Graphics: PGATour.com)
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