History of the Fed Ex Cup
The start of the Wyndham Championship on Thursday marks the beginning of the FedEx Cup playoffs for 2021, where the top 125 golfers from this season will compete to win the Tour Championship and, perhaps the PGA player of the year.
The current playoff system was introduced to the PGA Tour in November of 2005, though the first time it was awarded was in 2007. The FedEx Cup has a short yet illustrious history with it being less than 20 years old.
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The winner of the inaugural championship was none other than the great Tiger Woods, the first of two FedEx Cups he would win. Tiger’s two wins are tied for the most in history with Rory McIlroy. Rory and Tiger are the only players to have won the FedEx cup multiple times. Both of Tiger’s wins were in dominant fashion as he came into the playoffs ranked number one in the field and cruised to victory both times. Rory came into the playoffs in 2016 ranked 36th in the field and won two of the four events to claim the FedEx Cup.
The greatest upset, though, came from Billy Horschel in 2014 where he ranked 69th coming into the playoffs. He would go on to win two of the four events and finish in the top 5 in all but one tournament in the playoffs.
The FedEx Cup uses a progressive cut system. The field begins with the top 125 players in the rankings from that season. The Wyndham Championship is the only playoff event with a cut line into the weekend, where the field is cut down to 70 players. The field stays at 70 players for the BMW Championship where there are no cuts.
The final event is the Tour Championship with a field of the remaining top 30 players. The Tour Championship uses a unique strokes-based system where the points leader through the first two events begins the championship at 10- under, No.2 at 8-under, No. 3 at 7-under, No. 4 at 6-under, No. 5 at 5-under. Then players 6-10 start at 4-under, 11-15 at 3-under, 16-20 at 2-under, 21-25 at 1-under and 26-30 at even par. The winner of the Tour Championship is awarded $15 mIllion and is granted a five-year Tour exemption.
There have been a couple of changes to the format in the past. They changed the way the points were accrued and reset, meaning players who missed an event were docked and were unable to recoup the points they missed out on in the tournament they skipped. This change was designed to ensure the championship would not be decided until until every qualified golfer completes play at the final playoff event. The reason for this change was an instance where Vijay Singh had gained enough points in the first three events in 2008 to guarantee a win without completing the final event.
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Defending champion Dustin Johnson will start this week ranked 17th in the Fed Ex cup and the top 10 as it stands now is:
- Collin Morikawa
- Jordan Spieth
- Patrick Cantlay
- Harris English
- Jon Rahm
- Abraham Ancer
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Justin Thomas
- Sam Burns
Justin Thomas is the only player in the Top-10 who has won the Championship in the past so we could be seeing history this year with a first time winner of the Fed Ex Cup championship.