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By Dave Shedloski
PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent

And then there were 70.

Want a great diet plan? The PGA TOUR just showed us how to drop about 10,000 pounds in a week.

Tiger Woods hits his third shot to Cog Hill's 15th green in 2006. (WireImage)

Fifty men in the 120-player field were sent packing Monday at the Deutsche Bank Championship, leaving a par's worth of players (by the usual USGA count, anyways) to advance to suburban Chicago for this week's BMW Championship, the third leg in what the TOUR Insider has proudly termed, the "Grind Slam" of golf.

Of course, the PGA TOUR playoffs for the FedExCup are proving to be quite an exercise of more than just body. It's also an exercise of the mind and of stress management.

Some of the stress is immediate, especially for those who have to keep battling to clear the next hurdle and advance deeper into the season. Some of it slowly compounds, with a bit of that weight left in Boston foisted on the shoulders of those who tee it up Thursday at the Dubsdread Course at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Ill.

Absent a 36-hole cut this week, the gentlemen in slacks will parry over 72 holes to decide the top 30 places that advance to THE TOUR Championship in Atlanta.

A potentially nasty test awaits, depending on how firm Cog Hill's Dubsdread Course can get before Thursday. Two weeks ago, about eight inches of rain fell on the Dick Wilson-designed layout, and the place is still drying out. Course superintendent Ken Lapp couldn't cut the greens for four days.

Only this past weekend did things start getting back in shape. It's still a bit spongy in the fairways and on the large, undulating greens, but the rough is lush and topped off at 4 ½ inches.

With the mowers now put to bed, Lapp said the rough could grow to six inches by the weekend. Good thing the fairways are generous -- 25-30 yards -- and not running hard and fast.

Not yet anyway.

Straight sunshine and a bit of wind wouldn't hurt to make playing conditions a bit more challenging. Cog Hill's Dubsdread Course, 7,326 yards and par-71, played to an average of 71.366 last year when the tournament was in July, ranking it in the bottom half of the TOUR venues in terms of difficulty. That should change, and maybe by more than just a little with the right meteorological combination.

Hey, it's the playoffs. It's not supposed to be easy. And it's golf, which means it's never easy.

So, onward with the Grind Slam.

Worth knowing:

Three-time champion Tiger Woods is your clear-cut favorite ... again. News flash this isn't. Woods not only has never missed the cut at the BMW Championship in his nine starts there as a pro, but he's also finished in the top 10 seven times.

Jim Furyk hasn't as many wins as Woods at the BMW, but he's just as accomplished in top-10 finishes with seven, including the 2005 title. In his last eight starts, Furyk has seven finishes of seventh or better -- and four of fourth or better in his last five tries.

Trevor Immelman (shown here at Cog Hill in 2006) enters his title defense 37th in FedExCup points. (WireImage)

K.J. Choi, who suffered a lower back injury in March playing with his children, had to withdraw from the Deutsche Bank Championship when the injury flared up during the first round. Second in FedExCup points heading into Boston, Choi said he plans to be back for the final two playoff events. Choi has never finished better than 30th at Cog Hill.

Wisconsin natives Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly each have won the BMW Championship. Only once, however, have they finished in the top 10 in the same year, when Kelly was fifth and Stricker 10th in 2001.

David Toms, who sat out nearly two months last summer with two bad discs, has suffered a relapse that caused him to withdraw from the Deutsche Bank Championship one week after it hampered him at The Barclays, where he missed just his second cut of the season. Toms is near the bubble for The TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, and he said he hopes to get in the playoff finale.

He also has a goal of extending his streak of seasons with a victory to five either in the next two weeks or in the one or two starts he intends to make in the Fall Series.

Charles Howell III shot a pair of 69s to open the Deutsche Bank Championship, showing that things are turning back around after a hot start of the season. The winner of the Nissan Open had not broken 70 in back-to-back rounds since March.

Among the players missing the top 70 cut for the BMW were two notable TOUR Championship stalwarts who won't get a chance to get back to East Lake Golf Club -- Retief Goosen and Davis Love III. Goosen had finished in the top 10 in each of the last five editions of the TOUR Championship. Love had played in 12 straight season-ending tournaments.

Former PLAYERS champion Stephen Ames, who won the '05 BMW Championship, figures, like Toms, on competing in several events after THE TOUR Championship, saying recently, "I'm planning to play three or more tournaments after the [playoff] series. It's just a matter of which ones. If I don't play, that means a break of more than three months. That's too long a break."

TOUR Insider's power ranking for the BMW Championship:
1. Jim Furyk
2. Tiger Woods
3. Scott Verplank
4. Steve Stricker
5. Jerry Kelly.