FedEx Cup 2014: Standings, rules and results

Golf is an individual sport that doesn’t lend itself to a natural or traditional postseason format, but the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs are now in their eighth year and have settled in nicely to keep our attention after the majors. It’s always unenviable competing against the start of the football season, and Tiger Woods’ 2014 absence is an obvious hit, but the Tour puts enough money up to draw everyone qualified and keep the best players in the world coming. It’s better than the alternative of just playing out the Autumn with a string of non-major, regular and irrelevant tournaments. And this year, the four-week run will bridge us right into the Ryder Cup.

Rory McIlroy sits on top of the FedEx Cup standings at the start of the playoffs, overtaking the No. 1 ranking just two weeks ago with his victory at the PGA Championship. His first win of the year, the BMW PGA, was a Euro Tour event and not FedEx Cup points eligible. So despite a strong season, he didn’t start rocketing up the standings until that three-tournament stretch that started just a month ago. Winning two majors and a WGC event is a quick way to make up ground, and would ensure you the No. 1 spot in the final regular season standings in almost every year.

Until that Rory victory at Valhalla, however, it was Jimmy Walker who sat at No. 1 for almost the entire year. He won the very first event of the new wraparound schedule season, the Frys.com Open last October. That was his first career Tour win, but by February 10, he’d have two more, those titles coming at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Sony Open. Walker could coast at No. 1 all summer with those three early-season wins, and even though Rory’s stretch bounced him to No. 2, he’ll still be around for all four tournaments.

Walker, Mcilroy, and a couple others have little to worry about these first few weeks, but the prospects of getting to the finale are much tougher for almost everyone else. Here’s the path from the top 125 to the $10 million grand prize postseason winner. There would often be an off-week mixed in at some point. But with the Ryder Cup at the end of September, they will play four straight weeks and then take an off week in between the FedEx Cup finale and the Ryder Cup in Scotland.

The traditional postseason opener rotates to different clubs and courses in the New York metro area. This year’s Barclays will be held at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ. The tournament takes the place of the old Buick Classic, held this time of year in the New York area and almost always at Westchester Country Club. But since this NYC stop was transferred from a regular Tour event to a playoffs tournament in 2007, the venue has bounced around a bit. This is the third time Ridgewood will host it, with Vijay Singh winning the first FedEx Cup event here back in 2007 and Matt Kuchar winning in 2010.

A 125-man field is much smaller than a normal tournament but only 100 will play on to the second week. The top 88 in the standings are “likely” to get out of New York and advance, according to the PGA Tour’s projections.

The playoffs swing up from New York to Boston for the second leg of the postseason. This is the only tournament all year with a designed and pre-planned Monday finish. The Deutsche Bank runs from Friday through Labor Day weekend, making the cut Saturday afternoon and then trimming the field from 100 to 70 for the third playoffs event.

TPC Boston has hosted the tournament since its creation in 2003. While Tiger won’t play, it’s still one of three tournaments on the schedule that benefit his foundation (his Quicken Loans National and World Challenge being the other two). The 30-man cutdown to 70 here usually provides a bit of final round drama on the side. Players annually seem to vacillate above and below that points cut-off down the stretch at this tournament.

The BMW took the place of the historic and once-presitigous Western Open, but has remained mostly in the Chicagoland (Cog Hill CC) area since the start of the FedEx Cup in 2007. There was one drop-in on St. Louis and a swing down to the Indianapolis area when Chicago held the Ryder Cup in the fall of 2012. But it’s always been a Midwest tournament. This year, however, we jump from Boston and the DBC across the country to the Denver Area.

Cherry Hills Country Club has not hosted an officially sanctioned PGA Tour event since the 1985 PGA Championship. It was once obviously a major championship test that may have been rendered obsolete because of equipment changes and increased distance. But it’s still one of the best courses in the country, and has hosted the top amateur, women’s, and senior tour events in the intervening years since that 1985 major. This will be an interesting new (but classic) venue to watch these bombers attack, especially for the 70 who make it through and cross the country on a short turnaround week from Labor Day.

This third leg also makes the biggest cut of the postseason, trimming the remaining playoff field from 70 to the final 30 for Atlanta.

The final PGA Tour event of the season resets the points standings for the last remaining 30 players, but the top 5 after the first three legs of the playoffs are the only ones who don’t have to rely on outside help to win it all. While 2,500 FedEx Cup points are generously doled out during the prior three weeks, the Tour opted for the reset to ensure more players had a chance to win and some drama was left for the finale. All 30 players have a mathematical shot but those top 5 are in the driver’s seat and automatically win the overall playoffs $10 million prize with a win in Atlanta.

East Lake Golf Club, the historic course that served as the home of Bobby Jones, has hosted this event every year since it became the postseason final. With just 30 players in the field, there is no cut. Just making the final 30 is also huge for the following season, as it triggers several auto-exemptions into the majors and other top events on the schedule.

While there is certainly a competitive element to winning a playoffs format that attracts the top players, an enormous amount of money is also a big part of the draw.

A total of $67 million will be paid out across these four events. There are the $8 million purses up for grabs at each tournament, which is already on the high side for the Tour. But then there’s also $35 million in bonus money handed out to the 125 players who bow out at different points. The final $10 million for the overall postseason winner is obviously the biggest chunk of that bonus money. Here’s an allotment of that extra $35M:

We’ll have separate breakdowns and updates of each individual $8 million purse that’s handed out in the more normal PGA Tour process before this bonus FedEx Cup money. There are clearly opportunities to have a life-changing month financially for some of these lesser-known pros.

The final regular season points totals carry over to the postseason -- there is no reset at the start. But the points totals from the regular season (500 for PGA Tour event, 550 for WGC event, 600 for major championship) are charged up to 2,500 total points for each of the four tournaments. With so many points at all four tournaments, an early win or top five finish can obviously rocket someone from the bottom of the standings safely inside the top 10. That’s how you go from getting axed at the Barclays to playing in that exclusive 30-man field in Atlanta. Winning a tournament, however, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win the overall cup. Rory McIlroy went back-to-back and won two of the four playoffs events in 2012, yet didn’t win the FedEx Cup.

A reason for that is the reset that takes place before the final TOUR Championship. This reset is supposed to bring more players into contention, and technically keeps all 30 remaining alive for the overall Cup. Regardless of how many points a player adds to his regular season total in those first three playoff events, he’ll start with one of these totals if he makes it to Atlanta. Here’s the reset data:

So Rory McIlroy, who will start the postseason with 2,582 FEC points and only add to that over the first three tournaments, will still start the finale back at 2,500 if he’s able to stay in first place in the standings.

And speaking of standings, here’s the current order heading into the first round of the first leg of the FedEx Cup at The Barclays. The projections can get convoluted at times and fluctuate wildly every five minutes during a round, but we’ll continue to update the standings at the end of each day.

UPDATE Sunday Sept. 14: Billy Horschel pulled away on Sunday at the TOUR Championship. With the win, he secured the overall FedEx Cup prize and the $10 million purse that went along with it.