Preview our Golfbet Insider's 'Perfect 30' lineup for FedExCup Playoffs

It’s the opening week of the 18th edition of the FedExCup Playoffs, so it’s time for my rankings for the series, only this time it’s in the context of a new game that you can play.

Perfect 30 is live. It’s free for all to give it a go. The objective is to predict the order of the final leaderboard of the TOUR Championship, but winners will be determined using a scoring system that assigns values to other components of the Playoffs experience overall. This ranking serves as my entry, but I’ll pass a prize if I win. Oh yeah, there are prizes, too.

Beneath my 30 golfers are details of the format with historical references and tips to give you an edge. All of that is in addition to the usual snapshots of the three tournaments in the Playoffs and what’s at stake for the golfers. After all, the 70 qualifiers are chasing prizes as well.

Test your skills by playing Perfect 30 here, and tap here for the rules and regulations.

While this preview also fulfills the role as a primer and a guide on how to compete for prizes in Perfect 30, you also are advised to read the instructions. The elegance of the game is that multiple strategies can be rewarded based on how aggressive or conservative you want to be.

Because longshots rarely make enough noise in the Playoffs to warrant the risk to rely on any to advance to the TOUR Championship, select no more than four from outside the opening top 30 in the FedExCup and none outside the top 50 to advance. This is the second year in which only 70 golfers qualified for the Playoffs, so short of a victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship or the BMW Championship, it could require an outlier or two of a performance for that subset of the field to have a shot at the FedExCup at the TOUR Championship.

In the first iteration of the current Playoffs format last year, only four from outside the opening 30 turned the trick. The hero of the club was Lucas Glover. When he won the FedEx St. Jude as the 49-seed, he climbed to fourth. Jordan Spieth (T6), Sungjae Im (T6, 7th) and Matt Fitzpatrick (T2) also parlayed head-turning outings during the first two tournaments into tee times at East Lake. Yet, only Spieth (31st) and Im (32nd) would’ve been easy targets from the opening group from 31-50 for Perfect 30. So, as simple as it sounds, those just outside range are valuable if you want to chase the 4-point bonuses.

Once you’ve determined your field of 30, focus on groups inside the top five and top 10 on the final leaderboard before ranking them. (Reminder: FedExCup Starting Strokes set the opening leaderboard at the TOUR Championship.) For each correct pick no matter its position inside those bubbles, you score 5 points for a top 10 and 10 points for a top 5. Those are much more realistic bonuses than throwing a Hail Mary for 4 or 8 points at someone who’s closer to a chip and a chair at TPC Southwind. Furthermore, consider exact position (worth 15 points per correct guess) a bonus among the bonuses. That simply is too difficult to predict no matter the format.

There are no cuts during the Playoffs, so everyone will pad his total points upon arrival with values quadruple the norm. However, differences in points between golfers can be the hidden gems of data to leverage with specific golfers. For example, there are 18 margins of fewer than five FedExCup points between golfers adjacent in rank to each other in the field. Only two exist in the top 30 – Sungjae Im is 2.580 points behind Hideki Matsuyama in eighth, while Aaron Rai is 4.515 points back of Davis Thompson in 24th – but only 100 points separate Brian Harman at 20th and Chris Kirk at 28th. Expect considerable movement inside this range. The next three slim margins slot in the 31-36 range – Tommy Fleetwood (-4.075), Thomas Detry (-4.597) and J.T. Poston (-0.944). Relative to all inside the top 39, each singled out here is in the best position to advance with a worse showing than others outside this range. Meanwhile, all opening seeds from 2-8 are among the 13 differences of more than 50 points in adjacent situations. That’s why there will be little movement among the top dogs.

If the example calculation comes to fruition, a high percentage of entries will be totaling hundreds of points, but tiebreakers may be activated to determine who lands inside the top 10 for prizes. The first is lowest round during the entirety of the TOUR Championship. After 64 was the low round twice in 2019, five times in 2020 and twice in 2021, Max Homa carded a second-round 62 in 2022 and Collin Morikawa opened with 61 last year. My tiebreaker will be 63. The second tiebreaker is total birdies at the TOUR Championship. Since 2019 and in chronological order, the fields have totaled 201, 248, 257, 238 and 277. Tossing out the lowest total as the outlier, the average is 255, so I will be plugging that in.

If you can play the game and watch golf at the same time, then you’ll appreciate the lineup of host sites.

TPC Southwind opens for the first straight year. The most influential features of the stock par 70 are the 4,300-square foot greens that are among the easiest on which to pour in putts. This favors ball-strikers who are not known for their putting. Because there isn’t a prototypical fit for that profile in the 51-70 range, if you’re keen on plucking a guy from it, stick with the chalk and considering selecting only 2023 FedExCup champion Viktor Hovland at 57th.

Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado will host the BMW Championship. Although it was the site of THE INTERNATIONAL for 21 years, it will be the neutral field for these Playoffs because it’s been 18 years since the last time the PGA TOUR swung through. Situated 30 miles south of Denver, the stock par 72 is at altitude but it’s still going to be capable of stretching to 8,130 yards with three par 5s tipping over 600 yards each. Qualifying for this event yields entry into the full slate of Signature Events in 2025.

Then, as it has throughout the history of the Playoffs, the FedExCup season drops anchor at East Lake, the stock par 70 in Atlanta. Regardless of finish, all qualifiers are expected to receive exemptions into the 2025 editions of the Masters, the U.S. Open and The Open Championship. Each also will be equipped with a PGA TOUR membership extension through 2026. In addition to being crowned the 18th FedExCup champion, the winner of the TOUR Championship will be credited with an official TOUR victory and a membership extension through 2029.

In the first 17 years of the FedExCup, a golfer has won multiple tournaments in the same Playoff 12 times. Viktor Hovland in 2023 is the most recent. That’s a more difficult achievement than putting together a strategically smart smattering of 30 for Perfect 30 in which you can be all kinds of imperfect and still win.

Good luck and have fun!

ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE

MONDAY: Power Rankings (St. Jude)

TUESDAY*: ”Perfect 30” primer; Sleepers

WEDNESDAY: Golfbet Insider

SUNDAY: Points and Payouts; Qualifiers; Reshuffle

* Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.