Jack Nicklaus earned less than $10 million during his PGA Tour career.
Keep in mind the Golden Bear won 18 majors and a helluva lot of PGA Tour events.
On Sunday, the winner of the FedEx Cup will walk away with a $10 million bonus check.
First place money in the Tour Championship is $1.575 million. So basically, if one of your top five in the FedEx point standings wins come Sunday at East Lake, they can walk away with a whopping $11,575,000.
Life changing moment.
Amazing, in fact. Golf has come a long way from the days of Nicklaus, Palmer and Player.
So with those mind-boggling financials in mind, let’s take a look at who might end up with the big bucks this week.
The top five basically control their own destinies. If any of them win the Tour Championship, it’s quite simple, that player takes everything.
Your top five:
1: Jordan Spieth
2: Justin Thomas
3: Dustin Johnson
4: Marc Leishman
5: Jon Rahm
The player sitting in the sixth hole is Rickie Fowler. Rickie can get excited because that’s the position Rory McIlroy won it all from last year.
Now either some computer or someone with way too much time on their hands at the PGA Tour headquarters has come up with the different scenarios where any of the top 30 playing this week can win. You can check those out right here if you’ve got about an hour to kill.
Now if you’ve taken the time to go over the scenarios for all 30 players, congrats, you’ll need a nap after that.
So let’s be a little more to the point and see who we think is going to be the guy this week at East Lake.
Jordan Spieth is our first pick. Sure, that’s really going out on a thin limb. Spieth’s been pretty consistent through the first three events, didn’t perform as well in Chicago as he wanted but thought here is that his putter will end up hot enough to keep him right there come Sunday.
Spieth, from the pole position, doesn’t even have to win. Might be plenty to win it with a runnerup spot and he’s the only player the PGA Tour stat-geeks describe as having a “reasonable chance” with simply a top five finish.
Again, it will depend on what the rest have to say.
If not Spieth, why not Marc Leishman? The big Aussie has been beyond impressive in the playoffs and he’s chosen the right time of the year to get hot. Hasn’t looked like a fluke either. He’s got the length, hits great iron shots, especially with his wedges and putts wonderfully. He made two great back-to-back clutch putts last week at Conway Farms at the 15th and 16th holes to wrap up the BMW and by now, he certainly knows he belongs in there with the rest of those super-stars in the top five.
If not Spieth or Leishman, certainly we can see Justin Thomas in there. He’s the favorite to win Player Of The Year, although Spieth isn’t about to concede that. Spieth knows darn well that if he wins this week, he’ll wrestle that POY title from his buddy.
Dustin Johnson? Got the first win but hasn’t turned any heads the rest of the way.
Jon Rahm? Still needs some seasoning. Still has that temper, but has had a truly amazing year for a guy who has zero experience compared to the rest of the top five.
So who’s it gonna be?
Even in a field of 30, there’s so much talent and so many scenarios.
Still, hard not to go with Jordan Spieth.
It’s just something about that kid, hard to go against him.
