Field for Deutsche Bank Championship almost official

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PARAMUS, N.J. -- It's now (almost) official. Unless someone seeded worse than 93rd who made the cut DQs or WDs, the field for the Deutsche Bank Championship is set.

Fifteen players seeded outside the top 120 have played their way into the Deutsche Bank Championship by making the cut, and of course, 15 players seeded between 93rd and 120th have played their way out by missing the cut.

Only two competitors played their way into the Deutsche Bank Championship last year -- Rich Beem and Doug LaBelle II. However, with the increased number of points available in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, missing the cut is much more penalizing this year than it was last year.

This weekend, the battle turns to positioning going into the second Playoffs event. For example, Lee Janzen, seeded 144th, is currently tied for 23rd in the tournament and projected at 113th in the FedExCup standings. He could be as low as 120th entering the Deutsche Bank Championship, but if he can pull off a top-10 finish this weekend, he could get to about 90th in the standings, and be well-positioned to move on to the BMW Championship if he makes the cut at Deutsche Bank Championship. If he stays where he is or drops in the standings prior to the Deutsche Bank Championship, only a great finish there would get him into the BMW Championship.

At the top of the leaderboard, the race is also for positioning, but in this case the stakes are for the FedExCup itself. Steve Stricker is currently in the same spot he was last year -- if he can hang on to win, he'll be the outright leader in points. Hunter Mahan can also make a big move up -- he's currently projected in third, up from 31st. Tiger Woods will drop out of the top 10, and of course move down even further next week due to his season-ending surgery.

As of right now, eight players are projected to move from outside to inside the top 30, which is important for getting into THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

However, they'll still need to make big moves to win the FedExCup, because the top players are pulling away. If the event ended now, Steve Stricker would have 108,300 points, 10,070 more than Ryuji Imada, who would drop from ninth to 29th due to his missed cut. Imada would then need a victory to get back into the chase.

Seeding matters: For example, Phil Mickelson, who is currently tied for 21st with 15 others, can afford to have a mediocre finish and still be in contention. Even if he dropped to 70th this weekend, he would be less than 7,000 points behind Stricker, in sixth place. He would need to play well at the Deutsche Bank Championship and/or the BMW Championship, but with at least one top-5 finish, he'd still alive to win the FedExCup at THE TOUR Championship with a victory, unless Stricker wins twice.