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By Ward Clayton
PGA TOUR Staff

The recent advertising campaign featuring PGA TOUR stars and athletes from other sports is a humorous way to make fans aware of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, which begins this week. But the commercials also ring true in assessing how the golfers will grasp a new season-ending tradition.

The FedExCup will have its first owner in four short weeks. (WireImage)

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As former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis tells Jim Furyk in an ad titled Pre-Game Meal, "You're supposed to be hungry, it's the playoffs," after Bettis swipes Furyk's breakfast at a diner. Former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, currently an NFL broadcaster, meets Ernie Els in a locker room and convinces the South African to prepare by putting on eye black and banging his head on a locker (without a helmet). St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols swings in the batting cage and indicates to a nearby Sergio Garcia that "you have to put your game face on; it's all about intimidation." Tiger Woods exits a locker room whistling the Rocky III theme, Eye of the Tiger.

For the first time, the PGA TOUR will join team sports with a postseason. The schedule concludes with the PGA TOUR Playoffs, a series of four tournaments to determine the first FedExCup champion, beginning in late August and concluding four weeks later. Instead of the usual four rounds (or 72 holes) with a 36-hole cut, fans can view this playoff finish as four tournaments (288 holes) with a progressive cut in field size (dropping weekly from 144 to 120 to 70 to 30 players, with 36-hole cuts the first two weeks) to determine a champion, led by the world's top-ranked players going head-to- head in successive weeks. Players jockey for seeding during the course of 36 tournaments in the PGA TOUR Regular Season but gain only a slight advantage in a points reset for the final four events.

The player who accumulates the most points in the PGA TOUR Playoffs through mid-September at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola will take home the FedExCup trophy and a $10-million bonus in a $35-million bonus pool.

Here's a week-by-week look at the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup:

Aug. 23-26
The Barclays
Westchester Country Club, Harrison, N.Y.
Field Size: Top 144 players from the PGA TOUR Regular Season
Looking Forward: Only the top 120 in the PGA TOUR Playoffs standings advance to the following week's Deutsche Bank Championship
TV: GOLF CHANNEL/CBS|
Summary: Long a June staple of the PGA TOUR season, Westchester will be the site of the first playoff event. With its new late August date and a new irrigation system, the Walter Travis-designed course will play firm and fast and its rough will still be demanding.

The par-71 course plays to 6,839 yards, among the shortest courses on TOUR, but annually ranks among the top 10 in difficulty because of its changes in elevation and numerous doglegs. The par-4 11th and 12th holes ranked among the 50 most difficult holes on the 2006 PGA TOUR. In addition, the tournament will accommodate more fans and increase spectator areas around greens with additional bleachers.

Westchester features a unique start and finish. The 190-yard first hole is the only par-3 starting hole on TOUR. The 526-yard, par-5 18th is the only hole where a PGA TOUR champion made a double eagle and went on to win. Bob Gilder made double eagle in the third round in 1982. A fairway marker notes the spot where Gilder hit his 3-wood second shot. Westchester will be the host site again in 2008, followed by the new Liberty National Golf Club, which overlooks Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, in 2009.

Vijay Singh has fared quite well at Westchester, with three wins and four top-seven finishes.

Aug. 30-Sept. 3
Deutsche Bank Championship
TPC Boston, Norton, Mass.
Field Size: Top 120 in the PGA TOUR FedExCup standings
Looking Forward: Only the top 70 in the PGA TOUR Playoffs standings advance to the following week's BMW Championship
TV: GOLF CHANNEL/NBC
Summary: This Labor Day weekend event, which finishes on Monday, is the youngest of the four events (entering its fifth year) and the only one of the four that didn't change dates.

PGA TOUR member Brad Faxon and course architect Gil Hanse were brought in following the 2006 tournament to rework the Arnold Palmer-designed course and give it more of a New England feel, along the lines of Massachusetts' legendary courses such as Myopia Hunt Club, The Country Club and Kittansett Golf Club.

Chief among the changes was converting the par-4 fourth from a 425-yard dogleg right into a drivable par 4 of 298 yards with a smallish green and making the par-3 16th shorter (161 yards) but bringing the peninsula green tighter behind a pond. A number of the holes are now framed with stack-sodded bunkers (reduced from 102 to 52 larger bunkers), chocolate-drop mounds, wispy fescue and rock walls to reflect the New England countryside. The course is approximately 165 yards shorter, but also made accuracy a bigger factor.

"I think the players, they like it," Faxon said last September before the work began. "But I think they need to love it."

Tiger Woods is the defending champion and has three top-seven finishes in four starts at the event which benefits his Tiger Woods Foundation.

Sept. 6-9
BMW Championship
Cog Hill Golf & Country Club (Dubsdread course), Lemont, Ill.
Field Size: Top 70 in the FedExCup standings; no 36-hole cut
Looking Forward: Only the top 30 in the PGA TOUR Playoffs advance to the following week's finale, THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.
TV: GOLF CHANNEL/NBC
Summary: BMW is the new title sponsor of what was called the Western Open, the third-oldest event in professional golf (started in 1899, younger than only the British Open and U.S. Open).

Cog Hill's Dubsdread course has been the site of this event since 1991. The tournament has traditionally been held near July 4th. The tournament moves two months later in the schedule, closer to when it was played in the early years of the Western Open. As a result, the course will play faster and the temperatures may not be as warm, according to Cog Hill president and owner Frank Jemsek.

Cog Hill will be renovated the week after this year's tournament, with architect Rees Jones overseeing the work that is scheduled to be complete by the spring of 2009 at the latest.

With the date change, the tournament will also go back to the Western Open's roots and move around the Midwest. Before settling in the Chicago area in the early 1960s, the Western Open was played all over the country, in such far-reaching sites as Tennessee, Texas, Utah, California and upstate New York. Cog Hill will be the host course again in 2009 and 2011. Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, the site of the 1965 U.S. Open and 1992 PGA Championship, is the site in 2008. Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., where the 1991 PGA Championship was played, will be the site in 2010.

Tiger Woods has won this event three times at Cog Hill and has been the runner-up the last two years to Jim Furyk and Trevor Immelman, respectively.

Sept. 13-16
THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola
East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, Ga.
Field Size: Top 30 in the FedExCup standings; no 36-hole cut
Looking Forward: Winner of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup earns a $10-million bonus. Second earns $3 million, third $2 million, fourth $1.5 million and fifth $1 million.
TV: GOLF CHANNEL/NBC
Summary: It's appropriate that East Lake, the home to Bobby Jones, hosts the first finale to the FedExCup season. Just as Jones was successful in bringing more attention to golf in the early part of the 20th century, his inner-city Atlanta course will be the site of the grand finale of a new TOUR schedule.

The change in dates from early November to mid-September will make East Lake more difficult simply because of warmer weather. The bermudagrass rough was dormant for the later date, allowing players to be a bit bolder off the tee, but it will be thick for this year's event.

East Lake has two of the more unique par-3s on TOUR. The sixth hole plays downhill from an elevated tee to a peninsula green surrounded by water on the left, right and front. It normally plays 167 yards, but will stretch to 211 yards from a tee farther back on the hill during one round. The 18th is a 235-yard bear, uphill to a two-tiered green bookended by bunkers. It is the only par-3 finishing hole on TOUR.

THE TOUR Championship history at East Lake also shows parity. In six playings, there have been six different winners. Singh has had great success here, with a win (2002), a second in a playoff and six top-10 finishes.

If you're looking for potential drama in TOUR Championship history, then glance at 2000 when Phil Mickelson fired a final-round 66 to rally from one stroke behind third-round leaders Woods and Singh. That threesome enters the Playoffs among the top four seeds, setting up what would be quite a conclusion to the inaugural FedExCup should those stars align again.