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Who Can Win the 2017 FedExCup Title?

Who Can Win the 2017 FedExCup Title? image courtesy Debby Wong : Shutterstock.com
Who Can Win the 2017 FedExCup Title? image courtesy Debby Wong : Shutterstock.com

The final 30 players remain for the final event of the PGA TOUR season—the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. But who can win the series title and walk away with the $10 million prize?

After four playoff events, this year’s FedExCup standings have been whittled down to the top 30 players of the season and they will contest the TOUR Championship, which carries $8.75 million in prize money itself.

All 30 left standing will battle it out to win the TOUR Championship, and due to the PGA TOUR’s decision to reset all points earned throughout the season, each of them—theoretically—also has a chance of walking away with the FedExCup series title as the player of the 2016/17 season.

That’s because of the way the points are reset. They don’t go back to zero, but the top 30 are given points based on their positions in the FedExCup standings. The idea is to create tension and drama for the final event as well as an incentive for those further down the points rankings.

Rory McIlroy did the double last year, winning the TOUR Championship in a playoff with Kevin Chappell and Ryan Moore and as a result was crowned FedExCup champion in the process.

So, who Can Win the 2017 FedExCup Title?

This year, it will be Jordan Spieth who heads into the TOUR Championship leading the way with 2,000 points. Like McIlroy, Spieth also won the FedExCup in 2015 after his triumph in the TOUR Championship at East Lake.

In fact, no player since Tiger Woods in 2009 has been crowned the FedEx Cup champion having failed to win the TOUR Championship, which was won by Phil Mickelson that year. Since then, Jim Furyk, Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker, Henrik Stenson, Billy Horschel, Spieth and McIlroy have all done the double.

Behind Spieth in the top-10 of the FedExCup standings are Justin Thomas (1800), Dustin Johnson (1520), Marc Leishman (1296), Jon Rahm (1280), Rickie Fowler (1120), Hideki Matsuyama (960), Justin Rose (800), Brooks Koepka (640) and Paul Casey (480).

With 2000 points on offer for the TOUR Championship (in theory) even 30th placed Jason Dufner (115) could win the FedExCup title, although no player has lifted the trophy having started the series with less than 722 points—a feat Horschel achieved in 2014.

That would suggest the winner of the 2017 FedExCup will come from the current top eight in the standings—Spieth, Thomas, Johnson, Leishman, Rahm, Fowler, Matsuyama and Rose.

Winning the TOUR Championship

Of those, Spieth is the only former winner of the TOUR Championship and FedExCup standings, and he was also runner-up in the final event of the season in 2013 behind Stenson.

Rose is also a TOUR Championship runner-up, finishing second at East Lake behind Snedeker in 2012 and behind Spieth in 2015.

Spieth is favourite to win this weekend and become only the second two-time winner of the FedEx Cup series after Tiger Woods who won in 2007 and 2009. Will there be another chapter written in the 24-year-old’s impressive career?

See also: Justin Thomas: Child Prodigy to Major Champion