McIlroy vies for repeat at Dell Technologies Championship (Aug 31, 2017)
The battle for the FedExCup is down to the top 100 players on the PGA Tour and extends to TPC Boston this week for the second of leg of the playoffs at the Dell Technologies Championship.
The tournament tees off Friday in Norton, Mass., and concludes on Monday.
A field of 96 players will compete for a total purse of $8.75 million, with $1.575 million and 2,000 FedExCup points going to the winner. They will challenge one of the Tour's most exciting venues, a par-71, 7,342-yard course designed by the late Arnold Palmer's Design Group set about 25 miles from Boston.
Defending FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland won here last year and in 2012 to become one of just two players, along with Fiji's Vijay Singh (2004, 2008) to win this event more than once.
"I'm a big believer that it is a little bit horses for courses like you hear, and Boston is definitely a track that sets up well for me," McIlroy said. "I've been lucky enough to win at a couple of courses multiple times in my PGA Tour career, and I think just mentally you're just a lot more comfortable. You've hit great shots on that golf course before, you've shot low scores, and you've seen birdies out there. That's the thing -- once you know you can make birdies on a golf course, it makes it easier to do that again."
The top 70 players on the FedExCup points list after the Dell Technologies Championship advance to the BMW Championship, contested from Sept. 14-17 at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Ill. Then the top 30 players following the BMW Championship will qualify for the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta from Sept 21-24.
A points reset will take place prior to the Tour Championship, giving all players in the field a mathematical opportunity to win the FedExCup title. The top-five players control their own destiny and would claim the FedExCup with a victory at East Lake.
Four players -- J.B. Holmes, Scott Piercy, Brandt Snedeker and Sweden's Henrik Stenson -- qualified for the field this week but declined to play because of injury. Piercy and Snedeker are out for the rest of the year with injuries, and Holmes (at No. 88 in the rankings) will watch his season end because of the non-start. Stenson is at No. 20 entering the week and is favoring a knee.
No. 30 Sergio Garcia of Spain and No. 73 Adam Scott of Australia chose not to play last week at The Northern Trust but are back in action this week. Scott will have to make the cut this week to advance.
World No. 1 Dustin Johnson moved to the top of the FedExCup standings with a playoff win last week over Jordan Spieth and is excited about being back on top of his game after a mid-season back injury.
"Winning last week is big, because I'm probably guaranteed to be in the top five going into Atlanta, which is where you want to be," Johnson said. "Because you win the tournament, you win the FedExCup championship and that's the biggest thing for me.
"You can't win them all if you don't win the first one, right? It's definitely possible. Is it going to happen? I have no idea. I'd love to say, 'Yeah, I'm going to win all four (playoff events),' but the odds are not in my favor. With the guys out here, the talent level is so big from me to the last guy in the field that anybody in the field can win any given week."
Following Johnson in the current FedExCup rankings are Spieth, Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, Jon Rahm of Spain, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka, Daniel Berger, Charley Hoffman, and Jhonattan Vegas of Venezuela.
Seven past Dell Technologies Championship winners are in the field -- McIlroy, Fowler, Chris Kirk, Webb Simpson, Hoffman, Phil Mickelson, and Scott. Missing on the list of title winners here are Stenson, Tiger Woods, Singh, Steve Stricker and, Olin Browne.
It took 483 points to advance to this year's Dell Technologies Championship, with Michael Kim earning the final spot.
Three players -- Harold Varner III, Bubba Watson and David Lingmerth of Sweden -- played their way into the top 100 in the FedExCup standings to advance to this event, the fewest since two players did it in 2007.
Three players, Seung-Yul Noh and Byeong Hun An of South Korea, and Robert Garrigius, fell out of the top 100 to end their respective seasons.
