World No 2 Jordan Spieth believes he is “free-rolling” towards a possible $10 million payday in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
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Whatever happens in the BMW Championship in Chicago, Spieth will be among the top five players in the standings at next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta. And that means the Masters and US Open champion would be guaranteed to win the overall FedEx Cup title – and with it that eightfigure bonus – if he was to claim a fifth victory of the year at East Lake.
“It’s really just a free-rolling scenario,” the 22-year-old American said. “You want to win because you want to win a PGA Tour event, but as far as the final tally for the FedEx Cup, it’s not going to make much of a difference if I win this week or finish 70th because I’ll be in the top five and you control your own destiny.
“But it is an interesting scenario because of the reshuffle before the last event, and it makes you feel like you may as well go for broke here and play some shots under pressure that are more dangerous so that you can almost have it ready for next week.”
Spieth has made an early exit from the first two Playoff events, but with the 70-man field facing no cut this week, he joked it was nice to be able to tell hotel staff he would definitely not be checking out until Sunday.
“I feel very confident about where I’m at right this second,” he said. “As the week goes on, I’ll probably work more and more again to try and peak for next week, approach it like it’s a major championship.
“The weeks before majors this year have been good weeks for me, so I feel confident about the way we’ll perform this week as well.”
Before the Masters, Spieth tied for second at the Shell Houston Open and ahead of the US Open he tied for third at The Memorial. Before The Open at St Andrews, he won the John Deere Classic.
Denying he had suffered a letdown after his stunning performances in Majors this season, Spieth said: “Everything feels normal. Everything is on point. My game is in a solid state right now.
“It’s in a state where I can certainly shoot into double digits under par, and I believe that. It’s just a matter of getting it rolling, get into a groove and starting to see some putts go in and get an under-par round started so that I can settle in a little easier.
“You guys asked me the same thing after the Masters: How do you avoid a letdown? You guys asked me the same thing after the US Open. There wasn’t a letdown this year. I just had two bad weeks. Just leave it at that.”
Justin Rose (13th) and world No 1 Rory McIlroy (17th) are strong favourites to progress to the Tour Championship, but Paul Casey needs to finish in the top half of the field and Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter all require a top-three finish to move into the top 30 and qualify for Atlanta.
