PGA Tour Championship: Preview, Tee Times and TV Schedule

The FedEx Cup playoffs will come to an end at The Tour Championship, starting this Thursday at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Only the top 30 players in the point standings will compete for the Cup title and a $10 million prize.

All the points earned so far have been reset. All players are assigned points according to the standing they were in after the BMW Championship.

The top player in the standings will have 2,500 points, the second player 2,250 points, the third 2,000 points, the fourth 1,800 points, the fifth 1,600 points and so forth down to the 30th player who will have 210 points.

While this gives every player a fair shot at winning the Cup, only the top five players control their own destiny, and if any win the Tour Championship, he is guaranteed to win the Cup Title. Any other player outside the Top Five who wins the tournament would depend on how the players above him finish.

The top five players coming into the Tour Championship are Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Luke Donald (the world's top-ranked player) and Matt Kuchar.

There are many possibilities for every player in the field. If you want to check what every player needs to happen in order to win, you can visit the PGA Tour page for all scenarios.

Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott and Vijay Singh are the only previous winners of this tournament. Mickelson has won it twice, while Singh is the only previous FedEx Cup champion.

There will only be one of the four Major winners playing this week. PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley will be trying to cap the year with the FedEx Cup title.

There are many interesting storylines for this tournament, but among the most important are that Player of the Year and the final two spots in the President's Cup are still up for grabs.

About seven or eight players could win Player of the Year depending on what happens this week. There has never been this many players with a shot at winning the award.

As for the President's Cup, team captains Fred Couples and Greg Norman will be making their make-two picks after this weekend.

Norman has two picks to make, and Aaron Baddeley, Singh and John Senden are the front-runners. Singh has the added incentive that his streak of playing on every President's Cup could come to an end if he doesn't make it.

Couples has already made public that Tiger Woods will be one of his picks. That leaves Brandt Snedeker, Bill Haas and Bradley as the most likely to contend for the final spot.

There is the question as to whether the players with the most momentum—Rose, Senden and Geoff Ogilvy—will maintain it and win.

The players will be paired according to their ranking in the point standings.

There are many interesting pairings, starting with the top two players in the standings—Simpson and Johnson. Both have a win during the playoffs, and Simpson has been the most consistent of the two lately.

Rose and Donald will play together in a pairing of Englishmen who play mostly on the PGA Tour and who are looking for the biggest wins of their careers.

Jason Day and Senden are the pairing of two of the five Aussies, and Bradley and Adam Scott are where we will see a belly putter and a long putter in action.

Below are the complete pairings and tee times for Round 1. They will start from the first tee.

Tee Times

Time	Players
11:35 a.m.	Bo Van Pelt	Fredrik Jacobson
11:45 a.m.	Y.E. Yang	Aaron Baddeley
11:55 a.m.	Charles Howell III	Bill Haas
12:05 p.m.	Geoff Ogilvy	Vijay Singh
12:15 p.m.	Jason Dufner	Hunter Mahan
12:25 p.m.	Keegan Bradley	Adam Scott
12:35 p.m.	Bubba Watson	Johnathan Bird
12:45 p.m.	David Toms	Mark Wilson
12:55 p.m.	Phil Mickelson	K.J. Choi
1:05 p.m.	Steve Stricker	Gary Woodland
1:15 p.m.	Jason Day	John Senden
1:25 p.m.	Chez Reavie	Nick Watney
1:35 p.m.	Brandt Snedeker	Matt Kuchar
1:45 p.m.	Luke Donald	Justin Rose
1:55 p.m.	Dustin Johnson	Webb Simpson

TV Schedule

Thursday and Friday: 1:00-6:00 p.m. (Golf Channel)

Saturday: 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2:00-6:00 p.m. (NBC)

Sunday 12:00-1:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 1:30-6:00 p.m. (NBC)

SiriusXM Radio (PGA TOUR Network)

Thursday-Sunday: 12:00-6:00 p.m.