There is no telling the story of what Sunday holds at the Tour Championship without some sort of narrative picture-in-picture.
There is the issue of the FedEx Cup. That is golf’s version of a playoff, whose points-driven championship is decided at East Lake and whose winner receives the kind of payout — $10 million — that usually includes a photo op with a lottery commissioner.
Then there is the tournament itself, with its separate purse and the possibility of the winner being only the second happiest man on the grounds if he doesn’t qualify for the big payout.
Given how Saturday’s third round set the table, given all the contenders it kept alive, Sunday’s Tour Championship finale has some enthusiastic supporters.
“It’s going to be one of the most exciting Sundays of the year,” promised Rory McIlroy.
The Irish lad came to Georgia the leader in FedEx Cup points. The top five in points all can automatically claim the FedEx Cup title by winning the Tour Championship. Playing reliable if not particularly spectacular golf — this Aston Martin making like a Smart Car — McIlroy posted his third consecutive sub-par round Saturday (a 2-under 68). At 5 under for the tournament, he is just three shots off the lead.
“I’m so looking forward to [the final round],” he said.
“I think if I shoot 65, 64, I’ll have a good chance. If it get it to 10 under par, I think that could be a good target.”
Tiger Woods, second in points but still No. 1 in name recognition, flushed Friday’s 73 out of his system with a Saturday 67. He finished on a roll, playing the last 11 holes in 3 under. He’s four back of the lead and not hallucinating when he proclaimed, “It looks like I got a shot at it [Sunday].”
And, oh, did we almost forget to mention the man who will play in the final round’s final twosome, the one who seized the lead Saturday and with it the pole position in the FedEx Cup race?
Brandt Snedeker is quite OK with that. Go ahead and relegate him to the shade.
“Try to do it every week,” he said.
The No. 5 man in the FedEx standings, the relative Gummo in this Marx Brothers production, Snedeker put together what he considered a keepsake round Saturday. His six-birdie, no-bogey 64 shot him to the crest of the leaderboard, where he shares space with Justin Rose at 8 under.
“One of my best rounds, for sure, just because it was so tough today,” he said. The windiest day yet at the Tour Championship made hitting these narrow fairways guarded by the thickets of Bermuda rough extra difficult. Snedeker didn’t seem to notice.
Just because Snedeker arrived at Bobby Jones’ home course with so little fanfare does not mean he can be discounted now. He can go low with the best of them. No one within six shots of his lead has more rounds in the 60s this year.
Snedeker leads the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained Putting, the official measure of putting efficiency that was developed by a professor at Columbia and perfected by a team at MIT. Someone thought it was worth diverting some of the better minds in America from the search for clean energy and space exploration in order to arrive at a more perfect putting metric. And, eureka, here it is.
Strokes Gained Putting is like sausage and quarterback ratings — you don’t really want to know how the final product is arrived at. It is enough to know that if Sunday comes down to a putt-for-dough contest, Snedeker is someone to take very seriously.
One thing he hasn’t done is prove himself as a front-runner. In all three of his PGA Tour victories Snedeker has come from well off the lead — trailing by at least five strokes entering the final round each time. “I’ve never had a lead going into Sunday and won, so that’s the next step in becoming a world-class player,” he said. “I need to show I can do that.”
At 31, a professional since 2004, Snedeker believes he knows the right approach for dealing with the variables of a Tour Championship Sunday. “The biggest thing is going to be how patient you can stay because this golf course eats guys up who don’t stay patient. With all the extra stuff that goes with the FedEx Cup and the Tour Championship, there are so many reasons to get antsy.
“I’ve been around Tiger a bunch, and Phil [Mickelson] a bunch, and Luke [Donald]. Those guys have played great golf under serious pressure. Their patience is amazing. That’s why they’re the best at what they do.”
With his Saturday 64, Snedeker earned the advantage of teeing off last in the final round and seeing how the tournament plays out in front of him. But, he said, “I won’t look at the leaderboard all day. Whatever [the score], it’s going to be everything I’ve got on that day.”
McIlroy and Woods and Snedeker all maintain significant advantages for the FedEx Cup even if they don’t win the Tour Championship. Should they all begin falling down the leaderboard, then every hole becomes a math problem when trying to make out the big picture of the $10 mil bonus. No one said following this event would be easy.
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