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By Steve Dennis
PGA TOUR Staff

There are now two weeks left in the regular season. Calculating who has clinched various spots gets a little trickier, since a number of players are not eligible for the PGA Championship, and thus can only gain points in one week. I've presumed all of the PGA TOUR players in the PGA Championship could play in the Wyndham Championship. There is another confounding issue -- the fact that first-place points have to be awarded in a lump sum. I have tried to take all of the relevant factors into account, but if you're planning to wager on the results, you might want to check my math first.

Tiger Woods has clinched no worse than second at the reset. Tiger's continued dominance of the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational has given him a 6,495 point lead over Vijay Singh. Singh could pass him with a first and a second, but Jim Furyk would need two firsts. Since there aren't three firsts left, they can't both get by him. No one else could pass him even with two firsts. Since neither Singh nor Furyk are expected to play the Wyndham Championship, Woods is a virtual lock for the first seed. Of course, when the playoffs begin, he will still have a lead on everyone else, but it will shrink to 1,000 points due to the reset.

Darren Clarke could really use a finish in the top 3. (Getty Images)

The top five players have clinched a spot in the Top 15 at the reset. Phil Mickelson and K.J. Choi join the top-three point-getters in being assured of a Top-15 seed. Choi picked up 604 points last week and Mickelson got only 73, but the key to both of them locking up a spot in the Top 15 is that there are so few remaining opportunities for the players below them to accumulate points. Beyond the Top 15, twelve players are assured of being in the Top 30 to begin the Playoffs. Scott Verplank, with 9,949 points, is the last player who can be sure of being in the Top 30 when The Barclays begins. Our modeling of Playoff possibilities shows that, outside the Top 30, winning the FedExCup will be extremely difficult -- probably requiring two wins in four weeks against the best fields in golf. Of course, no one outside the Top 10 has two wins all year, so two in four weeks by a player lower down in the standings would be incredible. Still, stranger things have happened...

All 50 of the Top 50 in the FedExCup Points List are planning to play this week at the PGA Championship. Carl Pettersson, 51st in the standings, is taking the week off to be with his wife, DeAnna, and newborn son, Chase. He plans to play at the Wyndham Championship next week and hopes to play in all of the PGA TOUR Playoff events.

There is not much time left for big moves. For the players outside the Top 30, the only way into the Top 15 this week is a first or second. Next week, if the point differential between 15th and 30th remains the same, a second wouldn't suffice. There are 63 players in the PGA Championship field who are outside the Top 30, but who would move inside that line with a win. Thirty-four of those players would move inside the Top 15 with a win, but only two would get there with a second-place finish. This is a good illustration of why big moves up the points list are possible, but similar moves down are not. A great finish can move a player past 30 or 40 others on the list, but each of those players only drops one spot. So while every week one or two players may make jumps of 30 spots, only rarely will a player drop more than three or four.

There are a number of reasons to want to be in the Top 15 at the beginning of the Playoffs. First, our modeling shows that's where the winner is going to come from a significant majority of the time. Of course, part of the reason for that is that the Top 15 are the ones who have been playing best all year, so you would naturally expect they'd play best in the Playoffs. But it's also true that the relatively small point differences between the seeds at the reset really start to add up, and by the time you get past 15th or so, the gap between that place and first can be very difficult to close. Another reason to want to be in the Top 15 in the reset is that the odds are very good those players will be in THE TOUR Championship, even if they haven't had great tournaments in the first three weeks of the Playoffs. Of course, if they haven't played well, they will be shut out of a chance for winning it all, even with a win at THE TOUR Championship, but they will still have the benefits that come from being in the Top 30 at the conclusion of the FedExCup season.

Darren Clarke could really use a finish in the top 3. He is sponsored by Barclays Capital, and is currently featured in some terrific advertising for the company. At 222nd on the points list, he needs a third-place finish or better this week to get into the Top 144, possibly as high as 129th. At 129th, he would be virtually assured of staying in the Top 144 through the Wyndham Championship, and thus of being in the field at The Barclays. There are no alternates or sponsor's exemptions at Playoff events, so Clarke will have to earn his way in.

Twenty-seven players have wins so far this year, of whom 18 (67 percent) are in the Top 30 in the standings. Of the other nine, three won half-points "opposite" events (Fred Funk, Joe Ogilvie and Steve Flesch). The remaining six have failed to complement their victories with other good finishes -- only Nick Watney and Mark Wilson have a second top-10 finish in addition to the win. By contrast, the 12 players in the Top 30 who don't have a win have five top-10s on average.

Going into the PGA Championship a year ago, Tiger Woods was first on the money list, Vijay Singh was second, Jim Furyk third and Phil Mickelson fourth, and the points list looks exactly the same this year at the top.But after that, it's a very different set of names. Only 12 of last year's money list Top 30 are in this year's points list Top 30, and fewer than 65 percent are even in the top 70 this year. Among those in this year's Top 30, Boo Weekley, Brandt Snedeker and Henrik Stenson were not members last year, and five others have come from outside the Top 70 last year, including Justin Rose (102 on the 2006 money list) and Mark Calcavecchia (132 last year). Of last year's Top 30, Brett Quigley has had the toughest time so far this year, at 114th on the points list, followed by Chad Campbell at 105th. Campbell was 10th last year at this time.

Early Round Pairings I'd like to see (based on the field as of August 2):

This week, we are going with "early round pairings that would make good headlines."

So, for a story about...

...a famous duck committing a throwing error, DONALD-AMES-BADDELEY.

...avian population increases, BYRD-BJORN-DALY

...Ms. Macpherson's regular phone conversation, ELS-WEEKLEY-CALL

...tips on searching for sunken treasure in unlikely places, DREDGE-SMALL-BROOKS

...another scam by Mr. Sawyer following the white-washed fence, TOMS-GREEN-WALL