FedEx money fest begins in New Jersey
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2010 The Barclays | Preview | 25 Aug 2010
The opening event of the 2010 FedEx Cup Playoffs, the Barclays Championship, gets underway this Thursday at the A.W. Tillinghast designed Ridgeway Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey.
The Ridgeway Country Club has played host to a Ryder Cups, a US Senior Open, a US Senior PGA Championship, a US Amateur Championship and an LPGA event but if first played host to this particular event in 2008. Last year the event was taken to the nearby Liberty National on the Hudson River but returns in 2010 to host the leading 125 players in the FedEx cup Series.
On the only occasion the event has been held at Ridgeway two years ago, Vijay Singh defeated Sergio Garcia and Kevin Sutherland in a playoff.
This week’s field is a truly outstanding line-up as you would expect when so much money is at stake at the conclusion of the four events that make up the Playoffs. The field will be reduced to 100 after this week’s event, those players advancing to next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston.
The Finals field is reduced event further to 70 after the Deutsche Bank with those lucky enough to advance playing the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in Chicago.
The leading 30 players at the end of the BMW will head for Atlanta for the Tour Championship where a purse of US$10 million awaits the overall champion. Not that those making the Playoffs walk away empty handed. Those making this week’s field are guaranteed a bonus of US$70,000 and even those just making the final field in Atlanta are assured of US$175,000.
The total purse FedEx have made available is US$35 million – hopefully they are getting plenty of mileage out of such a significant commitment to the professional game.
Only Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer are missing from the game’s leading players, Westwood with his ongoing injury problem and Kaymer because interestingly he is not a PGA Tour member despite having played nine events in the US this season.
In addition to the leading lights in the field there will be a lot of interest in and sympathy for Dustin Johnson and Nick Watney both looking to bounce back from horror final rounds (for different reasons at the PGA Championship.
Australia is well represented in the Finals with Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Aaron Baddeley, Greg Chalmers, Jason Day, Steve Elkington, Nathan Green, Matt Jones, Marc Leishman, Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott, John Senden and Michael Sim all earning the right to play for the massive purses available over the next few weeks.
In addition to the bonus money available during the Finals, each individual event is worth US$7.5 million with the winner in each event securing US$1.35 million.
