Cream of the crop: Which players are on a hot streak?

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NORTON, Mass -- Everyone wants to peak at the right time.

In the golf world, the right time is now, as the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup are in full swing. With the volatility of the standings this year, the possibilities are endless.

It's survival time on the TOUR now. Last week, the Playoffs field began with 144 players at The Barclays. This week, it's down to 120 at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Only the top 70 here will advance to the BMW Championship.

Momentum is everything in the Playoffs.

Here's a look at five players who enter the Deutsche Bank Championship on a significant streak:

1. Vijay Singh. The Big Fijian won The Barclays for the fourth time in his career last Sunday and starts the Deutsche Bank Championship as the No. 1 player in the Playoffs standings.

Singh has been hit or miss in his last six starts, but the hits have been huge. After a fifth-place finish at the Travelers Championship, he missed the cut at the Open Championship but followed it up with a win at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational.

After back-to-back missed cuts at the Wyndham Championship and the PGA Championship, Singh won last week's thriller at The Barclays in a playoff over Sergio Garcia and Kevin Sutherland.

Singh could mean trouble for the rest of the field this week at TPC Boston. Aside from a tie for 60th last year, Singh's worst finish here is fourth. He won the event in 2004 to take over the No. 1 ranking in the world from Tiger Woods at the time.

"I feel good about this golf course," he said. "I've played well here and have good feelings about this course. So yeah, I'm ready to go out and play."

2. Sergio Garcia. The Spaniard was the bridesmaid again at the PGA Championship and at The Barclays, but there's no denying the fact that he's playing exceptional golf right now.

Garcia's only missed cut this season in 16 starts was at the Masters. His win at THE PLAYERS Championship in May was the biggest breakthrough of his career, and it has certainly translated in his consistency. Fittingly, he's now No. 2 in the Playoffs standings.

He could have another high finish here. Garcia's only previous start at the Deutsche Bank Championship was in 2007, and he tied for 17th.

3. Kevin Streelman. This rookie continues to impress. At The Barclays, he had the 54-hole lead. The final round was rough, but he pulled his game together in time to make birdies on the 16th and 17th holes at Ridgewood and narrowly missed a birdie putt on the last hole that would have earned him a spot in the playoff.

No, he didn't win, but Streelman took away nothing but happy thoughts from the experience.

"I was very proud of that," Streelman said, referring to his resiliency. "It was something that I've done before in smaller venues, smaller situations. But those are the things that you draw upon, based upon whether you're playing for a $2 Nassau or for a PGA TOUR event. I was able to draw on the past, and I stayed patient all day."

Streelman tied for sixth at the Wyndham Championship before the tie for fourth at The Barclays that moved him from No. 102 to No. 37 in the Playoffs standings. Here's a guy who went from hoping to maintain a TOUR card for 2009, to a guy who could prove to be a legitimate FedExCup contender, thanks largely to a late-season surge.

"Seeing that I'm up to 37 in the FedExCup points, now I want to get in THE TOUR Championship," he said. "That would be a dream come true, especially for my first year out here. But I think it's realistic right now. So I'm just going to try and work hard and continue to play the golf I've been playing, and if I'm able to possibly do that, I think it's doable."

4. Ben Curtis. Few people have been hotter lately than the 2003 Open Champion, who has three top-seven finishes in his last four starts. Two of those -- the tie for seventh and a tie for second -- were at the Open Championship and the PGA Championship, respectively.

Curtis went on to follow those two shining performances with a tie for fourth at The Barclays that helped him jump from No. 27 to No. 8 in the Playoffs standings.

It'll be interesting to see whether Curtis can keep the streak going this week. He hasn't exactly faired well at the Deutsche Bank Championship, where he's 0-for-3 in cuts made.

5. Martin Laird. Streelman isn't the only rookie making the most of his season. Laird, a 2007 Nationwide Tour graduate from Scotland, had his worst finish in three starts at The Barclays.

So how bad was it, you ask? How about a tie for seventh? Not bad at all, right?

That finish at The Barclays came off of a pair of ties for fourth at the Legends-Reno Tahoe Open and the Wyndham Championship. Laird is a combined 32-under par in those three tournaments.

With the way Streelman and Laird have been playing, you can pretty much throw out the theory that the rookies are at a disadvantage on a course they've never seen before.

Laird will need to keep it going at the Deutsche Bank Championship. While his tie for seventh at The Barclays boosted him from No. 128 to No. 67 in the Playoffs standings, he still will need to play well to maintain his position in the top 70 to be eligible for next week's BMW Championship.