FedEx Cup Points 2016: Explaining Distribution and Standings

The 2016 FedEx Cup got under way on Thursday at the Barclays in Farmingdale, New York, pitting the top 125 players against each other across four tournaments to find this year's PGA Tour champion.

Jason Day enters the first of four events with a slim lead over Dustin Johnson, who sits just 34 points behind the Australian. The play-offs offer quadruple points in comparison to what's on offer in the PGA Tour season, so the race to win this year's FedEx Cup is still wide open.

Here's a look at the standings ahead of the first of four play-off events:

Position	Player	Points
1	Jason Day	2,735
2	Dustin Johnson	2,701
3	Adam Scott	2,063
4	Russell Knox	2,001
5	Jordan Spieth	1,965
6	Brandt Snedeker	1,717
7	Patrick Reed	1,575
8	Phil Mickelson	1,532
9	Kevin Na	1,529
10	Justin Thomas	1,512
11	Kevin Kisner	1,491
12	Hideki Matsuyama	1,468
13	Kevin Chappell	1,422
14	Henrik Stenson	1,387
15	Si Woo Kim	1,382

Here's a look at the points distribution:

Position	PGA Tour Events	World Golf Championship Events	Masters, The Players, U.S. Open, British Open & PGA Championship	Additional Event
1	500	550	600	300
2	300	315	330	165
3	190	200	210	105
4	135	140	150	80

Position	Points
1	2,000
2	1,200
3	760
4	540
5	440
6	400
7	360
8	340
9	320
10	300
11	280
12	260
13	240
14	228
15	224
16	220

Position	Reseed Points
1	2,000
2	1,800
3	1,600
4	1,440
5	1,280
6	1,120
7	960
8	800
9	640
10	480

The FedEx Cup play-offs are the culmination of the 2016 PGA Tour season, during which the world's top golfers have amassed points over the course of 43 tournaments.

Out of the entire field, the top 125 players qualified for the Barclays, the first of four play-off events.

David Cannon/Getty Images

Upon conclusion of that tournament, the top 100 players will partake in the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. Then the 70 best will move on to the BMW Championship in Indianapolis, and finally, the top 30 will meet in the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Before the final tournament, reseeding will take place, and the points will be reset as well, ensuring any of the top five players have a chance at winning the title by winning the Tour Championship. Once the final event comes to an end, one man will join a special club of golfers, as shared by the Golf Channel:

Last year's play-offs were a bit of a letdown, as Jordan Spieth entered the Barclays with a lead of more than 1,500 points over the rest of the field. After the reset, he had a lead of 200 points and promptly won the final event as well to win his first FedEx Cup.

David Cannon/Getty Images

Spieth enters the play-offs ranked fifth, and if he can put together one or two solid results over the course of the coming weeks, his bid to become just the second player to win the FedEx Cup more than once will stay alive.

Per Ryan Ballengee of Yahoo Sports, Spieth is more than happy with the year he's had so far, despite not winning a major:

"

I think it’s been a really good season. If I have a season like this and I’m out here for 20 more years, that’s 50-some odd wins, so I’m certainly okay with that.

With the close call at the Masters; I had a chance to win that one. A little disappointing in the other three to not give myself another chance.

Again, I’m setting some pretty lofty goals for myself for the next six weeks, and it needs to cap off with us retaining that Ryder Cup. That’s very much on my mind.

"

Day leads the way thanks to his three PGA Tour wins, but his lead over Johnson is one of the slimmest regular-season leads we've seen in years. Both are expected to hold onto a spot in the top five, setting themselves up for a run at the title.

Rory McIlroy sits in 36th place and needs some good outings just to make sure he'll qualify for the Tour Championship, but one win and another top-10 finish would vault the Northern Irishman up the standings.

Danny Willett and Shane Lowry didn't enter the Barclays, and the former is not expected to take part in the Deutsche Bank Championship either, ending his PGA Tour season.