The 2019 BMW Championship is being hosted at the historic Medinah Country Club for the second leg of the FedExCup playoffs as Louis Oosthuizen and Dylan Frittelli attempt to make it to East Lake.
The field will start with 70 players this week, but only the top 30 in the FedExCup standings will advance to the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club.
Only two South Africans remain in the picture after Branden Grace bowed out Liberty National.
Oosthuizen now finds himself ‘on the bubble’ as he starts the event in 28th place. After a pair of T20s to polish off the regular season, the country’s best delivered a T6 at The Northern Trust where he was third in GIR, seventh in proximity and first in scrambling.
Frittelli, winner of the John Deere Classic, starts in 60th and will need a very, very strong showing if he is to make it to the finale in his rookie season. The two-time European Tour winner is also playing with Presidents Cup aspirations on the line; he is unlikely to seal a place in the top eight and will need to impress captain Ernie Els with another good performance.
The featured group is no doubt the Koepka-Reed-McIlroy combination, where the world No 1 and FedExCup-leading Brooks Koepka will go in search of his first season-long title win. He starts on the strength of three wins and three runner-up finishes in a year which has delivered again and again.
Somewhat late to the party is Patrick Reed, who ended his 16-month drought last week in what was his second career victory in the FedExCup playoffs.
Rory McIlroy, winner of the event in 2012 and the only past FedExCup champion in the top 10 of the standings, is looking to become just the second player with multiple FedExCup titles; the last was Tiger Woods (2007, 2009).
