The Northern Trust: Power rankings for the FedEx Cup Playoff opener

The Northern Trust returns to Ridgewood Country Club for the first time since 2014 as the FedEx Cup Playoffs get underway.

The major season is over, but we aren’t through seeing the world’s best convene. The Ryder Cup is just over a month away and the FedEx Cup Playoffs are right here right now, starting with The Northern Trust.

The action begins in Paramus, New Jersey, at Ridgefield Country Clubs, one of several New York-area tracks to host the first playoff event.

Ridgefield hosted the Northern Trust in 2008, 2010 and 2014 but will use a new routing at the facility featuring 27 holes between an East, Center and West course. The routing, as suggested by Gil Hanse for the A.W. Tillinghast design, will use the first seven East holes, use five from the Center and six from the West. It should offer players a healthy variety of holes and require a little more thought needed to get around Bellerive a couple weeks ago from the PGA.

It’s a parkland style course that measures over 7,300 yards for a par of 71. The weather looks cooperative and dry, so the course could have some firmness to it. Even with a fair amount of rain in 2014 the greens played fast on Sunday.

Stats to watch this week are total driving, par-4 scoring and proximity, among others.

This week and next week’s playoff event in Boston have 36-hole cuts, the final playoff events don’t.

Let’s take a look at who will ascend the FedEx Cup standings this week: