Fed Ex Cup Preview, Sergio's win.

It is only for the "highly skilled." The top 125 players on the PGA Tour this year will make their way to Bethpage Black for The Barclays, the first of four playoff events in the 2012 FedEx Cup. Dustin Johnson is the defending champ of The Barclays.

After The Barclays, the field will be cut to 100 for the Deutsche Bank Championship, 70 for the BMW Championship, and finally 30 for the Tour Championship at East Lake.

A sign near Bethpage's first tee

Here are the current top 10:

Tiger Woods        2,269  (3 wins)

Jason Dufner        2,110  (2 wins)

Rory McIlroy       2,092  (2 wins)

Zach Johnson       2,019  (2 wins)

Bubba Watson     1,777  (1 win)

Hunter Mahan      1,739  (2 wins)

Carl Pettersson    1,691  (1 win)

Keegan Bradley   1,670  (1 win)

Matt Kuchar        1,600  (1 win)

Steve Stricker      1,456  (1 win)

The Fed Ex Cup has its pros and cons. I like the fact that players who decide to skip an event are punished severely, with more points on offer during the playoffs (2,500 for a win, as opposed to 500/550/600 in the regular season). Jason Dufner has decided to sit out the Barclays, and I'm sure this will come back to bite him if he wants to consolidate his spot for the last event, The Tour Championship, which is cut at 30 players.

However the current format means that a player, such as one ranked between 100-125, is able to make a great jump into the top 10, even though they have not played well all season. Sorry to pick on one guy, but for example, America's Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III sits on 443 points at 105th, but a win would catapult him to 2943 points, and possibly 1st place depending on other results. But I guess the FedEx Cup rewards those who can perform when the pressure it at its highest. For that, I concur. 

Also, the fact that the points are reset for the finale means that all 30 have a mathematical chance of winning. I will always remember the somewhat farcical situation in 2008 where Vijay Singh was so far ahead going into the final playoff event, no one could possibly catch him. All he had to do was avoid disqualification to win the FedEx Cup and the ridiculous $10 million prize.

Bill Haas lifts the 2011 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup trophies

Other notables worth a mention: 2011 winner Bill Haas sits in 21st place. Sergio Garcia, who prevailed in the last regular season event, is in 33rd place after previously being ranked 102nd, one place behind his good friend Adam Scott. US Open champion Webb Simpson is in 13th place, and world number 2 Luke Donald is safely poised in 16th.

I never have much luck with predictions but I shall go through the formalities anyway.

Obviously there is Tiger Woods. With 3 wins already this year, and a good record at Bethpage Black which includes the 2002 US Open, it would be wrong to go against him. I will come out and say it - Tiger will win the FedEx Cup and claim back his world number one ranking! Big call, but I want to see it!

Do not ask me why, but I am not a fan of McIlroy. It probably comes from jealousy in the fact he is one year my senior and has such a perfect swing. Quickly becoming a confident finisher of tournaments, McIlroy's power will give him an advantage this week. It is the putting that can let him down at times.

Pettersson won the RBC Heritage earlier this year

Carl Pettersson has been one of the form players this year and also over the past month, with a strong showing at the PGA Championship and a top 10 finish at Wyndham last week. The likeable Swede should have a good outing this week.

Graeme McDowell has been there or there abouts over the past two years in most of the majors and other big tournaments worldwide. I am thinking he will win one of the four playoff tournaments, but maybe not this one.

Adam Scott came back well after his British implosion (gosh it is terrible thinking back to it!) to finish 11th in the PGA Championship. Before the FedEx Cup was established, Scott won the Deutsche Bank in 2003 and the Tour Championship in 2006, so drawing on those memories could help him.

Then there is rookie 22 year old American Bud Cauley, who was impressive in finishing 3rd at Wyndham last week. Positioned in 35th place, he has performed very well this year for such an inexperienced PGA Tour pro. Perhaps he will surprise a few over the next month.

It will be interesting to see what Sergio does after his win last week. Remember, he won with a caretaker caddy, local David Faircloth, after parting ways with long time caddy Garry Matthews. 

I will digress here to move on to something that Sergio said in his post-tournament press conference regarding his caretaker caddy: "He’ll probably get 75 and a tip" Garcia joked, but then went on to say “He’s going to be happy with what he gets. Obviously he’s not going to get what a normal caddie would get, because his job was fairly easy. But he’ll be happy with whatever he gets.” 

This has been met with some controversy. But Faircloth did not have the usual hands-on role of most PGA Tour caddies. Sergio also said that he made most of the decisions himself and that this was a good thing for him going forward, because in the past he tended to be indecisive and rely too much on the caddy to make the decisions for him. 

Garcia acknowledges Faircloth after the win

Usually, top, full time caddies earn 10% of winnings. Garcia pocketed $960,000 US for this win, but it would be unlikely that Faircloth would receive $96,000. We will probably never know the figure, but I would like to think that Garcia would give him a generous $40-50,000.

On a final note, Garcia seemed to get a bit worked up at the ignorance of the American media after his win, and I did too. Actually, it got me quite angry. It is true that this was Garcia's first win on the PGA Tour since 2008, but the media kept explicitly driving home the idea that this was Garcia's first win since 2008. Garcia rightly pointed out that he won two European Tour events late in 2011, and said that just because they were wins in Europe doesn't mean they aren't important. Exactly Sergio!