BMW Championship Notes – 2014

2014 BMW Championship
Dates: September 1-7, 2014
Where: Cherry Hills Golf Club, Cherry Hills Village, Colo.
Par/Yards: 35-35—70/7,352 yards
Field: 69 (Dustin Johnson)
2013 champion: Zach Johnson
Purse: $8,000,000/$1,440,000 (winner)
FedExCup: Top 30 in FedExCup after BMW Championship advance to TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola
Format: 72-hole stroke-play
Twitter: @bmwchamps

A look at the 2013 BMW Championship

• Zach Johnson overcame the third-round lead of Jim Furyk to win his 10th PGA TOUR title in a Monday finish at Conway Farms Golf Club outside Chicago.
• Johnson entered the fourth round trailing Furyk, who had posted just the sixth 59 in PGA TOUR history in the second round, by three shots.
• Johnson responded with a bogey-free 65 enroute to a 2-shot win over Nick Watney and three over Furyk.
• Johnson went on to play in the FedExCup Playoff finale, the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola for the fifth time in seven years, finishing fifth in the final standings.Cherry Hills Golf Club
• The 2014 BMW Championship will be conducted at Cherry Hills Golf Club in Englewood, Colo. The William Flynn designed course has hosted seven Major Championships and two U.S. Amateur Championships since it opened in 1922.
• Cherry Hills, Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., and Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., are the only courses to have hosted the U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Open.
• Past Champions at Cherry Hills include Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Phil Michelson.A look to 2015
• The BMW Championship returns in 2015 for the second time in three years to Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Ill.The BMW Championship and the FedExCup Playoffs
• The BMW Championship is the third of four events of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup – with the entire season building toward this four-tournament stretch. There is more on the line than just the BMW Championship trophy – as players jockey for the coveted top-30 position to advance to the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola.
• Each Playoff event offers 2,500 FedExCup points to the winner.
• The top 125 players on the final PGA TOUR Season FedExCup points list qualified for The Barclays.
• The top 100 players on the FedExCup points list following The Barclays qualified for the Deutsche Bank Championship, with 25 players having been eliminated following the first week of the Playoffs.
• The top 70 on the points list following the Deutsche Bank Championship qualify for the BMW Championship, with 30 players having been eliminated from the Playoffs.
• The top 30 on the points list following the BMW Championship qualify for the year-end TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola, with 40 players being eliminated from the Playoffs.
• A points reset will take place following the BMW Championship giving all 30 players in the field at the TOUR Championship a mathematical chance to win the FedExCup. The top five players control their own destiny and can win the FedExCup with a victory at the TOUR Championship.
• The top five
  • The top five in the FedExCup Playoff standings is the goal for players after the BMW Championship is played and the 70-man field has been trimmed to 30.
  • The top five in the standings entering the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola will control their own destiny and will win the FedExCup with a victory at East Lake GC. Here’s a look at the top five headed into this week’s BMW Championship.Current top five:
    

    FEC Rank	Player	FedExCup Pts	Wins	Top 10	FEC points behind
    1	Chris Kirk	4,154	2	4	—
    2	Rory McIlroy	3,335	3	10	819
    3	Hunter Mahan	3,311	1	6	843
    4	Jimmy Walker	2,823	3	10	1,331
    5	Matt Kuchar	2,618	1	11	1,536

    Current players on the top-30 bubble:

    25 Brendon Todd
    26 Stuart Appleby
    27 Justin Rose
    28 Keegan Bradley
    29 Gary Woodland

    Miscellaneous Notes

  • Four of the six winners on the Fall segment of the 2013-14 PGA TOUR Season are currently inside the top 30:
    Chris Kirk (1); Jimmy Walker (4); Webb Simpson (19); and Dustin Johnson (22). Just outside the top 30 are Harris
    English (31) and Ryan Moore (34).
  • Fifteen different players under the age of 30 have wins on the PGA TOUR this season, accounting for a total of 20 victories.
  • Last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship winner Chris Kirk was the first player under the age of 30 to win a FedExCup Playoff event since Rory McIlroy at the 2012 BMW Championship.
  • In Rory McIlroy’s last five starts on the PGA TOUR, he has led the field in the Driving Distance category; The Open Championship (327.8), WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (334.8), PGA Championship (315.6), The Barclays (303.8) and Deutsche Bank Championship (304.1).
  • Hunter Mahan is the only player to have never missed a start in the FedExCup Playoffs (30 overall).
  • In the five previous years (2009-2013) with the current FedExCup points system, a total of 13 players have played their way into the top 30 at the BMW Championship, including Luke Donald and Nick Watney in 2013.
    Three players have made it to the TOUR Championship the first seven years of the FedExCup. Here’s their yearby-
    year FedExCup finish and how they stand after the Deutsche Bank Championship:

    Name	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014 Current FEC
    Steve Stricker	2nd	14th	3rd	7th	18th	20th	3rd	116th – Eliminated
    Phil Mickelson	3rd	7th	2nd	13th	15th	5th	9th	56th
    Hunter Mahan	15th	18th	27th	18th	7th	19th	20th	3rd