The defending champion, Will Zalatoris, is not on hand as he continues to recover from back surgery. With the reduced field size, there will be no 36-hole cut at the St Jude going forward. 'If you're up there in the standings, at least you know you've got a little bit of wiggle room.' 'I missed the cut here last year and then was able to bounce back with a good finish at the BMW and then go on and win the Tour Championship,' he said. McIlroy, who won the FedEx Cup in 2016, 20, said he treats the playoffs like a 12-round tournament. 'I've got my Spider with me this week if that putter isn't doing what I want it to do over the first couple days. 'I just wanted a different look, just wanted to freshen it up,' McIlroy said. McIlroy, too, brought an extra putter to Memphis with the stakes growing higher each week. The margins in this game are so close, so it's something that I feel really comfortable with where the balance point is on this putter, and I'm excited to try it out this week.' If your alignment is a half inch off, the ball lips out instead of going in the middle or lips out instead of lips in. 'It feels like at times this year I've hit a lot of good putts that have gone right up to the edge and not gone in,' Scheffler said. His problem has been the flat stick, and he was seen at TPC Southwind testing a new putter. Scheffler's season average of 2.807 strokes gained: tee to green is also historically good, topped only by Woods and McIlroy since 2004. Woods also had 17 top-10s in 2000, very much in Scheffler's reach. One more would tie Woods (1999), Payne Stewart (1986) and Tom Watson (1980) for the fourth-most in a season since 1980. Scheffler has a whopping 15 top-10 finishes this season. It made a difference when I finished second place.' 'Obviously you want to win every time we tee it up, but yeah, the goal is to try to get to East Lake as No 1 and enjoy that two-shot lead,' Rahm said of the playoff format. He came closest to winning the FedEx Cup in 2021, when he finished runner-up to Patrick Cantlay. Rahm hasn't won since slipping on his first green jacket in April at the Masters, but he tied for second at The Open Championship his last time out.

Max Homa and Wyndham Clark round out the top five in the points standings, but the playoffs might be a three-horse race. The top 50 in the points standings after the St Jude will qualify not only for next week's BMW Championship, but also the tour's new signature events in 2024.

Just 70 players qualified for the first leg of the three-week playoffs, down from 125 in prior years.

Tiger woods pga tour 2004