The PGA Tour will head into its business end this week when the best of the best tee off at the Northern Trust in the first FedEx Cup playoff.
TPC Boston will host the top-125 golfers from this year’s edition of the FedEx Cup as they aim to qualify for next week’s BMW Championship and the following week’s Tour Championship.
Justin Thomas currently leads in the Cup’s standings, while PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa is hot on his heels in second place.
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Thomas, who won the FedEx Cup in 2017, has once again enjoyed a consistent year on Tour by winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the beginning of the year and the recent WGC-FedEx St Jude Invitational.
The featured groups for the opening two rounds at the Northern Trust are based on each player’s position in the standings, which means Thomas, Morikawa and Webb Simpson will form a group on Thursday and Friday.
Bryson DeChambeau, Sungjae Im and Patrick Reed will also headline a highly-entertaining group, which could produce serious golf as they battle for the top spots on the FedEx Cup standings.
Similarly, world No 1 Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele and Lanto Griffin could also provide fireworks in their featured group when they tee off on Thursday and Friday.
South Africa’s Dylan Frittelli, who has been brilliant on Tour this season, has been paired alongside Tiger Woods and Matthew Fitzpatrick in the fourth and final featured group for the week, which will be an exciting opportunity for Frittelli to play such a big event in the company of Woods.
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Frittelli currently sits 50th in the FedEx Cup standings and a solid performance at the Northern Trust should see have qualify for the BMW Championship with relative ease.
Louis Oosthuizen is the only other South African to have earned a spot in the first playoff event after settling in 99th spot, following last week’s Wyndham Championship.
Despite enduring a difficult year on Tour, Oosthuizen has been providing glimpses of brilliance in recent weeks and could very well hit proper form over the course of the next three events.
