It's a Dirty Job, but Someone Has to Win $11.35 Million

ATLANTA -- Water hazards at East Lake Golf Club are full to the brim and mud oozes from under foot with every step taken, the results of 10 inches of rain that has fallen on the grounds in the past week. Although the sun broke through early Tuesday afternoon, more rain -- as much as five inches -- is forecast for the coming days.

Whatever goes down this week at the FedEx Cup playoff-ending Tour Championship will be dirty.

"It's just going to be a soggy mess," Stewart Cink said.

What a week for a golf tournament.

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Flood waters have resulted in at least two area deaths. Atlanta public schools were closed Tuesday. Three metro interstate highways had to be shut down Monday evening. After Georgia Emergency Management Agency officials asked residents to stay off roads, only 500 fans turned out for the Atlanta Thrashers' preseason home opener Monday night in 19,000-seat Philips Arena.

PGA Tour officials, however, remain positive, secure in the knowledge that not even buckets of rain will water down their drama.

In theory, come Sunday evening's final round (if all goes as scheduled), a player could stand over a potentially winning putt worth a cool $11.35 million.

"Whoa!" Zach Johnson said. "I'd have to consult my financial wife on that one. Good problem."

Unlike the previous two years of FedEx Cup history, the playoff winner is not a foregone conclusion before this Tour Championship even tees off. Tiger Woods won in 2007 just by showing up. Likewise for Vijay Singh in 2008.

An offseason reworking of the points system has corrected that problem, and the entire field of 30 golfers remains mathematically alive for the $10 million bonus -- not to mention the $1.35 million tournament winner's check.

But while No. 30 John Senden can take the FedEx Cup title by winning the Tour Championship as long as, among other things, Tiger Woods finishes dead last, the inside track to the giant payoff belongs to the top five on the points list going into Thursday's opening round: Woods, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Johnson and Heath Slocum.

A Tour Championship victory by any one of those five guarantees the FedEx Cup title.

It may not be completely fair that Woods has six victories this season and can be overtaken by a so-far-winless Furyk, but it does promise attention.

"I like it," said Cink, a member of the tour policy board that helped hammer out the system. "It rewards you for playing well in the regular season and even more for playing well in the playoffs.

"I think the skeleton that we have right now, the major part of the system, will stay in place. There probably will be some major changes, but I think this year is closer to what the intent was when we first started out with the FedEx Cup."

It could make for a confounding week. What's the news? If the Tour Championship winner and the FedEx Cup champ are not the same player, who is the bigger story? Can you win a golf tournament worth $1.35 million, plus the ton of perks goes with it, and not make the lead paragraph in the game story?

If you are Australian rookie Marc Leishman, No. 16 on the points list, you don't worry about it.

"I'd have to win. And have a lot of help," Leishman said of his FedEx hopes.

"For so much to happen for me to get over the line, it would be one in a million at best.

"I'm not looking to win the FedEx Cup. I'm going to be trying to win the golf tournament."

Whoever eventually cashes in can use part of his winnings on dry cleaning.

The grounds are soaked and every golf swing sends mud flying. Bunkers have been rebuilt as many as four times in the past seven days. Although the range was kept open, the course was closed Monday and Tuesday morning, finally being opened for practice rounds in the afternoon.

The rains began soaking the area last week and until Tuesday afternoon's brief break in cloud cover, fell almost nonstop.

"I come in here like I've been injured or something," Cink said. "I've touched a club two days in the last seven, just to hit balls and putt a little. Not my normal routine. But everybody is in a weird situation."

They all also have been there before.

"We've seen this happen so many times on tour where a golf course gets flooded out in the practice rounds or even in the tournament rounds, and the staff comes out and does an unbelievable job and everything looks like it never happened," Padraig Harrington said.

"You've got 30 players here this week and none of us are concerned about the condition of the golf course or the weather."

That $11.35 million putt is another matter.