GolfBlogger favorite Kenny Perry leads the Tour Championship after Saturday’s round at East Lake, building a two shot lead on Tiger with a 64.

But it doesn’t matter in the overall FedEx Cup picture. If I’m doing the math correctly, for Perry to win, he has to hope that Woods finishes fifth or worse; that Stricker finishes fourth or worse and; that Furyk and Johnson finish third or worse (Johnson would tie Perry with a third). The fifth place going into the tournament, Heath Slocum (and all others below him) cannot challenge a Perry first place finish.

Furyk currently is tied for 15th, seven shots back. He’s not a contender. Johnson is thirteen shots back. He’s out of it also. So of the top players going into the Tour Championshipo the only ones that really count after three rounds are Perry, Woods, and Stricker.

Here’s an analysis of the chances of the top players after three rounds: Perry, Woods, Mickelson, O’Hair, Harrington and Stricker.

Only Tiger and Stricker (currently six shots back) have a chance to take the Cup outright with a win in the Tour Championship.

Tiger wins the Cup in any scenario where he finishes second, and Stricker doesn’t win.

Stricker wins if he finishes second or third, and Tiger finishes fifth or worse.

Mickelson, currently in third, can take the Cup if he wins; Tiger finishes ninth or worse and; Stricker and Furyk finish fourth or worse.

Harrington has to win the Tour Championship, with Tiger finishing third or worse.

O’Hair needs both Tiger and Stricker to finish third or worse.

Here’s where you can watch the Tour Championship—the culminating event of the FedEx Cup

THU-FRI: 1-6p ET GOLF
SAT: 12-2p ET GOLF
SAT: 2-6p ET NBC
SUN: 11:30-1:30p GOLF
SUN: 1:30-6p ET NBC

Stewart Cink, ranked 26th in the FedEx Cup playoffs: “When they say you have a mathematical chance, it means you have no chance.”

He’s referring to the points system in the FedEx Cup that puts the top five in the driver’s seat. If any of those guys win the tournament, they take home the $10 million check.

But those outside the top five all have a mathematical chance. As I noted in an earlier post, last place John Senden can win if he finishes first, Tiger finishes last and Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson, Heath Slocum and Padraig Harrington finish worse than sixth.

A New York Times article also has computed a scenario—not unlikely—in which Jim Furyk can win even without finishing first this weekend:

All that would have to happen would be for someone from outside the top eight seeds to win the event — a list that includes but is not limited to Kenny Perry (No. 9), Dustin Johnson (No. 11), Phil Mickelson (No. 14), Ángel Cabrera (No. 24) — and for Furyk to finish second and for Woods to finish fourth or lower.

The permutations are endless, and pointless. Tiger will lap the field and take it all home.

The odds for the 2009 Tour Championship this weekend show something I haven’t seen in a while: Tiger Woods is even money to win. Padraig Harrington and Jim Furyk are at 14/1; Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson, 18/1.

What’s interesting is that Padraig Harrington is the bettors’ second choice to win the Tour Championship, but that he doesn’t control his own destiny in winning the overall FedEx Cup.  As the points system is set up, only the top five in points—Tiger, Stricker, Furyk, Johnson and Heath Slocum—can walk away with the trophy simply by winning.

Padraig Harrington and everyone else needs help. Harrington can only take home the Cup if he wins the Tour Championship and Tiger finishes third or worse.

The player currently in fifth in the points system, Heath Slocum, is set at 80/1. No one, it seems, expects him to win.

The complete odds for the Tour Championship, as set by Bodog Sports, is as follows:

The New York Times says that there’s a measure of success for the FedEx Cup this year, especially in light of last year’s event where Vijay Singh was presented the trophy with the event still in progress:

That golf is even being debated this late in September is another measure of the success of the playoffs. With the air — and airtime — filled with footballs and United States Open tennis and late-season baseball, golf has grabbed a fair portion of attention.

Final-round television ratings were up for each of the first three events: the Barclays on CBS scored an overnight household rating/share of 3.7/8 percent, up 106 percent from 1.8/4 in 2008 and 76 percent from a 2.1/5 in 2007; the Deutsche Bank Championship drew a 2.4/6 overnight rating on NBC, up 60 percent from a 1.5/3 last year, but down 40 percent from a 4.0/9 in ’07.

Scotchman in San Diego wanted to know how the FedEx Cup points were reset going into the Tour Championship so that he could conduct a few “what if” scenarios. Playing with a few numbers makes it pretty clear, though. Any of the top five can win by winning the Tour Championship; anyone outside the top five can win if they finish first at the Tour Championship, and the other top players finish unexpectedly low. So here they are; regardless of the number of points players previously had accumulated, the FedEx Cup points are reset going into the Tour Championship as follows:

1 (Tiger Woods) - 2,500
2 (Steve Stricker) - 2,250
3 (Jim Furyk) - 2,000
4 (Zach Johnson) - 1,800
5 (Heath Slocum) - 1,600
6 (Padraig Harrington) - 1,400
7 (Sean O’Hair) - 1,200
8 (Scott Verplank) - 1,000
9 (Kenny Perry) - 800
10 (Jason Duffner) - 600
11 (Dustin Johnson) - 480
12 (Nick Watney) - 460
13 (Geoff Ogilvy) - 440
14 (Phil Mickelson) - 420
15 (Retief Goosen) - 400
16 (Mark Leishman) - 380
17 (Brian Gay) - 360
18 (Kevin Na) - 340
19 (David Toms) - 320
20 (Lucas Glover) - 310
21 (YE Yang) - 300
22 (Ernie Els) - 290
23 (Hunter Mahan) - 280
24 (Angel Cabrera) - 270
25 (Steve Marino) - 260
26 (Stewart Cink) - 250
27 (Mike weir) - 240
28 (Luke Donald) - 230
29 (Jerry Kelly) - 220
30 (John Senden) - 210

Players earn points at the Tour Championship as follows.

I have gotten a couple of questions about the PGA Tour Championship, and the FedEx Cup Points system, so I’ll do my best to explain it here (and probably fail miserably).

After the BMW Championship, Tiger Woods has a seemingly insurmountable 1,504 point lead over second place Steve Stricker. His lead is big enough that all he would have to do to win the $10 million check was show up for the event. But that would be boring. To inject some actual interest in the final round, the Tour “resets” the points before the Tour Championship. So rather than having 7,196 points, Tiger starts the Tour Championship with 2,500. Steve Stricker, in second place starts with 2,250. Jim Furyk has 2000, Zach Johnson, 1,800; Health Slocum, 1,600; Padraig Harrington, 1,400; Sean O’Hair, 1,000; and so on.

Since the Tour Championship is worth 2.500 points, this means that every one of the thirty players in the field has an outside chance to win the overall FedEx Cup by winning the Tour Championship. However, only the top five can win without significant help, as we will see.

A first place finish at the Tour Championship adds 2,500 points to a player’s reset total. A second place finish adds 1,500; third, 1,000 and so on.

This means that any player from the top five who wins the Tour Championship wins the FedEx Cup.

Example: Suppose that Heath Slocum (fifth place) wins the Tour Championship. He started with 1,600 points and gets another 2,500 for a total of 4,100. Tiger finishes second. He started with 2,500 and gets another 1,500 for a total of 4,000. Slocum wins.

The bottom line: any player in the top five who wins the tournament, wins the FedEx Cup.

Players in sixth place and lower need some help to win the $10 million check. If Padraig Harrington (sixth place) wins the Tour Championship, he ends up with 3,900 points. Tiger, by coming in second would still take home the check because he’d have 4,000. Padraig can win the FedEx Cup only if he wins, and Tiger finishes third or lower.

A similar calculus works for every player outside the top five. Players six through thirty can finish first in the FedEx Cup only if they win, and the top five finish unexpectedly low. For example, the thirtieth player, John Senden, will end up with a total of 2,710 points if he wins the Tour Championship, but Tiger still wins if he doesn’t finish last. If Tiger somehow does finish last, Stricker could still win by finishing seventh or better.

It doesn’t seem like a bad system, and perhaps after three years, the Tour has it right.

But none of this will matter if Tiger simply laps the field as he did at the BMW Championship.