FedExCup Watch: Wyndham Championship  PGA TOUR Staff This is the last week of the regular season, which brings many things into focus, although a lot of spots are up for grabs.  Brandt Snedeker could reach the top 10 in the FedExCup points with a victory this week in Greensboro. (WireImage) The highest-ranked player currently committed to the field is Brandt Snedeker, at 26th. With a win, he would rise to ninth, which means the top eight in the current standings are guaranteed to remain where they are. Snedeker or Jonathan Byrd could make it into the Top 15 (at 15th place exactly) with a second, the only players in the field who could do so. This means that only John Rollins could fall out of the Top 15 this week. (He could drop two spots to 17th, if Byrd, Kevin Sutherland, Lucas Glover or John Senden win and Snedeker or Byrd finishes second alone.) The top 24 in the current standings have clinched a spot in the top 30. However, 50 players in the field will be competing for those six available slots in the top 30. Among them are 2006 winners John Senden, Carl Pettersson, Troy Matteson, Dean Wilson, J.J. Henry, Tim Herron, Chad Campbell, D.J. Trahan, Jeff Maggert and Joe Durant. Eric Axley, Chris Couch and Kirk Triplett, who also won last year, would move into the top 50 with a victory at the Wyndham Championship. The top 70 is a lock for all players currently in 50th or better. There are 121 players in the field who could move past Peter Lonard in 70th with a victory; Lonard is also in the field. One hundred twelve players can book their reservations for Westchester, to play in The Barclays. That's the mathematical certainty. In all likelihood, however, fewer than 10 players currently below 135th will win the points necessary to move above that total (1,964 points), which means that the top 135 are probably safe, even if they miss the cut or don't play. However, players such as Bob Tway, Lee Janzen, Glen Day and Marco Dawson must make the cut or face the strong possibility of elimination from the Playoffs. Of course, for players outside the top 144, the Playoffs begin this week. Anders Hansen is an interesting example. Ranked 40th in the Official World Golf Rankings, he is 151st in the FedExCup points standings. After three missed cuts early in the season, he has played well since, and especially recently, with at T22 at Bridgestone and T12 at the PGA Championship. A top-10 at the Wyndham Championship would virtually guarantee that he could move on to The Barclays, but he'd still need another good finish at The Barclays to make it into the Deutsche Bank Championship. There is an excellent chance that someone is going to have almost five months to think about the fact that if he'd made one more putt on Sunday at nearly any tournament he played all year long, he'd have been in the Playoffs. Tway, Janzen, Day and Dawson are separated by only 26 points, and they're currently 140th through 144th. It's not unreasonable to expect that the elimination line could fall between two of those players, in which case the difference between getting in and looking in could be that one putt in a tournament in March or April. A win at the Wyndham Championship will in all likelihood put someone in position to play in all of the Playoff events. Forty-seven of the players in the field would move into the top 30 with a win, and solid play in the first three Playoff events would keep them there. The season-long points race is clearly about who will win, but getting (and staying) in the top 30 has a number of significant benefits also, not least of which is getting to play in the $7 million no-cut TOUR Championship. For the players without a win in 2007, being in the top 30 in points also carries with it a trip to the Masters tournament, in addition to other eligibility benefits. Pairings we won't get to see:
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