2020 Tour Championship has a $45 million bucket

The Tour Championship feels like quite a different ball game to the rest of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

The amount of money at stake -- $45 million split between 30 golfers -- dwarfs all the other prize pools in all of golf, and while winning that trophy is prestigious, winning the $15 million that comes with it can be life-changing for several golfers in this field. Getting second place is nothing to baulk at either, with a net $5 million in prize money. Third place gets $4 million, and on and on down the list.

Everyone is a winner!

Even if you go out and shoot 90 four days in a row, you still take home nearly $400,000, which is $195,000 more than the bonus you get if you finished one spot out of the Tour Championship by coming in 31st place in the FedEx Cup standings after the BMW Championship last week.

Last year Rory McIlroy took home the first $15 million first prize (it was previously $10 million). This year, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas are the favorites going into the Championship. Going in with a staggered start (meaning top players start farther under par), Dustin Johnson already leads at 10-under while Rahm is 8 under and Thomas is 7 under.  Collin Morikawa has won seven of the last eight events in which at least one of them was entered in the field and will start at 5-under Those in 26th-30th place are currently even par.

Rory McIlroy, who has two FedEx Cups to his name, will start this week at 3 under, but he might not finish at all. His wife Erica is expecting, and Rory said last week at the BMW Championship that if the baby comes, he's out. "I'm going to play in many more Tour Championships," said Mcllroy, "and it's only going to be the birth of your first child once. That trumps anything else."

There are some monster names not in attendance this year. Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott and Tommy Fleetwood will all be watching from home. But as far as 30-man fields go, this one is great. The fact that the top three players in the world are the top three on the leaderboard make it that much better.

With the quality of golf being played at the moment, the Tour Championship will most definitely be a tremendous golfing experience!

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/356GfjH