BMW Championship: News and Preview Going into the Final Round

Justin Rose has built a four shot lead at the BMW Championship going into the final round Sunday.

If he holds on to the lead on Sunday and wins the BMW Championship, he will be third in the FedEx Cup point standings.

That would mean then that one of the players currently third, fourth or fifth will move outside the ever important top five heading into the Tour Championship.

After this week, the points for the top 30 are reset and a range of points will be assigned according to the position they hold at the time.

The top player in the standings will have 2500 points, the second player, 2250 points, the third, 2000, the fourth, 1800, the fifth, 1600 and so forth down to the 30th player who will have 210 points.

This gives every player in the field a fair shot at winning the FedEx Cup.

Now, being in the top five gives the players the best chance to win the cup, since any of them is assured of winning the FedEx Cup by winning the Tour Championship. This is due to the points awarded—winning a tournament in the playoffs is 2500 points and second place is 1500.

This way if the fifth in the standings wins the Tour Championship, he would finish with 4100 points. Then the most the top player in the standings could finish with is 4000 points.

Hence, the importance to finish in the top five and control your own destiny.

Right now, between Matt Kuchar, Luke Donald and Brandt Snedeker, is the man that would be out of the top five if Justin Rose were to win the BMW Championship. The fight here seems to be between Donald and Snedeker.

Kuchar holds a 255 point lead over Snedeker and 248 over Donald. Even after his disastrous seven-over today. It looks difficult for him to be out of the top five, but you never know.

Donald has been on fire after his four-over opening round. He has posted rounds in the 60s and is moving up the leaderboard, while Snedeker has posted two rounds in the 70s and has been losing ground.

Points Projections

After three rounds, we have five players projected to move into the top 30. The players projected to move in are Rose (up to third), Senden (up to eighth), Geoff Ogilvy (up to 26th), Jim Furyk (up to 27th) and Martin Laird (up to 29th).

The players projected to move out are Bo Van Pelt (down to 31st), Aaron Baddeley (down to 32nd), Charl Schwartzel (down to 33rd), Kyle Stanley (down to 34th), and Rory Sabbatini (down to 35th).

The player on the bubble is Y.E.Yang, and the red-hot player still on the outside, but threatening moving up is Sergio Garcia (up to 37th). Garcia shot along with Donald shot the day’s best round at four-under, while Yang has yet to crack the 60s.

Furyk who is the FedEx Cup defending champ, has been in and out of the top 30 projections during the previous rounds. He needs another strong round to maintain his spot and a shot at back-to-back Cup titles.

Ogilvy and Rose are the only two players that have shot in the 60s all three rounds. Ogilvy is currently T3 at eight-under and can thank his putting for his performance. He is leading the tournament in Putts-Per-GIR. If Rose slips a little and he makes another low round, he could win the tournament.

The Players with a Shot at Winning on Sunday

Australian John Senden is in second place at nine-under. He is followed by Geoff Ogilvy and Bill Hass at eight under. Fifth at seven-under is FedEx Cup points leader Webb Simpson and sixth is PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley at six-under.

Those are the players within six strokes of the leader Rose. For them to have a legitimate shot at winning, Rose must come down to them.

Shooting a seven-under or lower has been done so far at this tournament by Rose on Round 1, going eight-under and on Round 2, Brandt Jobe and Brendon De Jonge each went seven-under.

We could add then Jobe to the list. He is sitting eight shots off the lead, he did a seven-under and he could do it again, right?

Even though so far it looks like this is Rose’s tournament, he’s not a lock to win it. He has lost six of the previous seven tournaments where he entered leading into the final round and with the recent finishes in the past few tournaments, we can expect anything here.