Today’s post goes in a different direction than usual. With the world of professional golf now involved in a points or ranking type of championship, I thought it would be a good time to play the “if-then” game that is usually played in September with baseball and in January with football. We all do it–if a certain team does this and these other teams do that, then this team will win the championship. However, if this other team does this and these other teams do that, then this other team will win. You know the drill….

So let’s play the game with this weekend’s Tour Championship that started yesterday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

Out of the remaining 30 players in the Tour, there are really only 6 players left who have a chance to win the $10 million Grand Prize

This week there are a total of 50,000 FedEx Cup points available. For the last three playoffs 9,000 points went to the winner, but this week saw this increase to 10,300 points.

So, after playing with and considering all of the possible combinations and scenarios, let’s start playing the “if-then” game…

1. Tiger Woods (currently 112,733 points): If Tiger wins, or if he doesn’t and none of the other top six contenders don’t win, he will add $10 million to his retirement account. With prudent investment, Tiger’s great-grandkids will be benefiting from this.

2. Steve Stricker (currently 109,600 points): A win would give him the Cup and the $10 million. If he finishes second and Woods finishes fourth or lower and Phil Mickelson finishes third or worse, Stricker will still win the Cup. With Stricker finishing lower than third, he has no chance of taking it from Tiger.

3. Phi Mickelson (currently 108,613 points): If Phil wins this weekend’s championship, Tiger needs to finish third or lower for Phil to win the FedEx prize. This sets up the scenario of Phil winning the tournament but losing the big prize to Tiger. If Phil finishes second, he could still win the Cup. To do so Stricker must finish third or lower and Tiger would have to finish sixth or worse. If Phil finishes third or lower, he cannot beat Tiger.

4. Rory Sabbatini (currently 103,588 points): If Rory wins this weekend’s tournament, in order to win the Cup, Mickelson has to finish in a tie for second or worse, Steve has to finish with a tie for third or worse and Tiger has to finish with a tie for 13 or worse.

5. K. J. Choi (currently 103,100 points): If Choi wins the tournament then an unlikely series of events has to happen in order for him to win the Cup. Phil would have to finish third or worse, Steve would have to finish fourth or worse and Tiger would have to finish 22nd or worse.

6. Aaron Baddeley (currently 102,800 points): If Aaron finishes first in the tournament, there is only one way he is going to win the Cup and that big retirement fund prize–Tiger will either have to withdraw or be disqualified. All I can say is, “It ain’t gonna happen!”

So there you are folks. Would be interested to know if you come up with any other possible scenarios that would allow any of the 6 remaining contenders to walk away with the big prize.

Golf News, News, phil mickelson, professional golf. FedEx Cup, steve stricker, tiger woods, Tour Championship

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Golf News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.