The American golf championship arrives at the grand finale of the 2018-19 season with a different register. There are new rules and an even bigger prize pool: $60 million in total, $15 million in bonuses for first place. The races that will lead to crowning the king of US greens are three and no longer four and we start today, with the Northern Trust on the path of the Liberty National GC, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The first 125 players in the annual points ranking, accrued throughout the season, are admitted to the tournament.
Only 122 will take the field, but the Italian champion is among them Francesco Molinari, 25th with 1.054 points. The position in the standings is good, but you have to grit your teeth to move forward: in fact, next time there will be 70 players and only the first 30 will arrive at the climax of the last match. In any case, Francesco is a step ahead Tiger Woods (28th), which is always a good yardstick.
At the top of the ranking is the number one in the world Brooks Koepka, great favorite of the event and looking for his first Fedex title and the umpteenth confirmation of his immense talent. The pursuers are champions of the caliber of Rory McIlroy, Matt Kuchar, Xander Schauffele and Gary Woodland. It's slightly late Dustin Johnson (seventh), but there are no distances that the world number two is unable to bridge.
In pole position we find the Spaniard Jon Rahm (tenth), while English is absent Paul Casey (eighth), who has just announced his presence at the upcoming 76th Italian Open (Olgiata GC, 10-13 October). They are in the running for both the title of the race and the final jackpot Justin Rose (11th), 2017-2018 FedEx Champion, e Bryson DeChambeau (18th), Northern Champion. They need a hit to hope for anything Sergio Garcia (65th) and Jordan Spieth (69th).
Everyone can believe it. In fact, for each race there are a lot of points up for grabs: 2.000 to the winner in the Northern Trust as in the following BMW Championship, (15-18 August), against 500 or 600 in the races during the year.
Furthermore, unlike previous editions, the points will not be reset for the last race (this was done so that all 30 had at least one chance of winning). Instead, shots will be awarded and whoever wins the Champinship Tour also wins Fedex (while in other years this millionaire brace was not a given). The first classified will start from the score of -10 shots, the second -8, then climbing up to the fifth, while from the sixth to the tenth will start from -4 and so on in groups of 5, up to zero from 26 to 30. The winner will set a new cash-in record for a single match, as he adds the bonus to the match prize.
