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By T.J. Auclair
PGATOUR.com Interactive Producer

NORTON, Mass. -- Positioning has always been the goal of PGA TOUR players. Until 2007, that positioning was for the money list to maintain playing privileges for the following year.

Now it's all about the inaugural PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.

Rory Sabbatini won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial this year. (Getty Images)

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With one tournament down and three to go in the four-tournament series, 31-year-old South African Rory Sabbatini likes his No. 3 position in the FedExCup standings, which is three spots better than what it was before his third-place showing at The Barclays last week.

"That's the beauty of the way they set it up," Sabbatini said. "You have all year to get yourself in position. You've got to play well. You can't just suddenly show up for the last four events. You have to qualify your position and put yourself high enough going into it that if you do have a bad week or don't finish as high up as you would like, you still have a cushion there that you know you've got a safety. The situation is that's the way it was structured, that's the way we've known it was going to be all year. So there's no big surprise in it... With three events remaining, you obviously want to be as high up as you can, give yourself as much opportunity as you can - for if you do have an off week - of still being able to recover from it. I'm quite happy being where I am."

At this week's Deutsche Bank Championship just outside Boston, The Playoffs field has been reduced to 120. Since players go off according to their respective ranking, Sabbatini will tee it up with Barclays winner and new No. 1 Steve Stricker and No. 2 K.J. Choi for the first two rounds of the tournament, which begins on Friday and has the only planned Monday-finish on the TOUR schedule.

Part of the battle for players during this four-week stretch will be fighting fatigue -- something Sabbatini isn't worried about.

"I've spent a lot more time this year actually getting myself physically conditioned throughout the year, and I think that's been a big factor in helping me maintain my concentration out there and basically prevent any fatigue factor from kicking in," he said. "I've never really had an in-season exercise program. This year it's been pretty consistent, two full workouts a week, plus daily workouts to get ready to go out in the round."

Sabbatini also said that playing several tournaments in succession is nothing out of the ordinary.

"It's no change for me. You know, typically I play almost the full West Coast Swing anyway," he said. "I've played seven or eight events in a row before, so it's nothing new to me. This time of year is generally the time of year where I kind of gear it down a little bit. Obviously, this year I had to kind of change scheduling. I skipped Memorial, which is normally a course I love to play and play well there. I just had to kind of change my schedule around for that."

Because of the FedExCup, Sabbatini is making his first trip to the TPC Boston, where Tiger Woods is the defending champion. Woods dug himself a little hole when he elected to skip the playoff-opener at The Barclays and dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in the standings. Despite Woods' absence in the first event, Sabbatini said the FedExCup isn't any less significant.

"The way I see it, there's four events, and all of them matter," he said. "You know, play all four events, play well, and you give yourself more opportunity to finish higher up. You know, that's like saying if your starting pitcher wasn't playing in the playoffs in the majors that it doesn't matter. I mean, I think it still matters just as much."

Sabbatini, who won at Colonial in May, has a total of seven top-10 finishes in 20 starts this season. Along with the win, he also finished in a tie for second at both the Masters and the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. He said his best approach to positioning himself for the FedExCup has been to not think about it.

"It's been the situation all year long that I've approached every event that I've played as always -- I'm not looking at gaining points here or there or anything like that," he said. "I'm going out there to try to play as well as I can, put myself in position and in contention. You know, that's just the way I've approached the year, and it's just happened to be that I've played well and played fairly consistently throughout the year and kept myself in high enough position."