Will FedExCup decide this year's Player of the Year?

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NORTON, Mass. -- Besides determining which player will get to put a big sterling silver cup in his trophy case and a big bonus check in his bank account, the next three tournaments in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup will decide another significant award for golf's biggest names.

Despite what you might have heard, this year's Player of the Year award is not a done deal. Yes, Tiger Woods, thanks to his five wins, may be in the driver's seat to land his 10th Jack Nicklaus Trophy, but his failure to seal the deal in any major this year has left the door open. Just ask last year's Player of the Year, Padraig Harrington, who certainly isn't writing Tiger's name on his ballot just yet.

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Tiger Woods has five wins but no major -- and that means the Player of the Year award could come down to the FedExCup. How do you think the Player of the Year competition will be decided? Join our discussion on Facebook. Click here

"I'm sure the FedExCup is going to have a big effect," Harrington said Wednesday as he prepares for this week's Deutsche Bank Championship. "If any of the guys who have won one of the majors wins the FedExCup, surely they'd be Player of the Year.

"So it can't be a done deal at this stage. It's still open. The FedExCup has got to have a big impact on it. I think you'll have to wait and see. Too early to call."

The players vote on the Player of the Year award after the season, and winning majors obviously carries a lot of weight. Harrington's two major wins last year trumped Tiger's U.S. Open win and four wins in six starts.

"Tiger has won five times, no majors for him this year, and we've got four major winners different. It's going to be tight," said Heath Slocum, last week's winner at The Barclays. "... Definitely if someone comes up and unexpectedly wins the FedExCup, maybe take that into consideration. It's one of those things you just wait until the end of the year and see and kind of judge on the full year."

In terms of the majors, three of this year's winners won majors for the first time, and none currently reside in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings. But add a FedExCup title to a major and ... well, those are pretty solid credentials.

As U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover said, "If Tiger wins (the FedExCup title), I think it makes it obvious. Somebody that won a major wins, it might throw a wrench in some people's minds."

Here's a breakdown of some possible scenarios:

TIGER WOODS. Here's the best reason why we should think Woods shouldn't be considered a fait accompli -- not even Woods himself considers it a done deal. Last week at The Barclays, he said the four major winners should be up for consideration, adding, "I think my name might be up there, as well."

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Obviously, five wins and seven other top-10s in 14 starts, along with the current lead in FedExCup points, speak for themselves. But losing a major for the first time with the 54-hole lead keeps the conversation alive. Perhaps so did his failure to sink that 7-foot birdie putt on the 18th at Liberty National on Sunday that would have elevated him to a playoff. Those are things we just don't expect to see from the world's best golfer.

MAJOR WINNERS. Of the four major champs this year -- Angel Cabrera (Masters), Glover (U.S. Open), Stewart Cink (British Open) and Y.E. Yang (PGA Championship) -- only Yang has another win under his belt in 2009, The Honda Classic. Overtaking Woods at Hazeltine obviously has to impress his peers, too, since he did something nobody else had ever done in a major.

But while Yang and Glover have been more consistent, Cink and Cabrera are more established. They also played in all four majors, while Yang did not play in the U.S. or British Open and Glover wasn't in the Masters.

Should Yang win THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola and the FedExCup title, he could make the strongest case for Player of the Year. Three wins -- including a major -- and the FedExCup title would be awfully stout.

MULTIPLE WINNERS. Besides Woods and Yang, there are seven other players with multiple wins this year -- Zach Johnson, Geoff Ogilvy, Brian Gay, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry and Phil Mickelson, each with two apiece.

Of those seven, Ogilvy and Mickelson would seem to have a step up due to their World Golf Championships wins -- Ogilvy won the Accenture Match Play Championship while Mickelson won the CA Championship. But after winning two of his first five starts, Ogilvy has just two top-10s since, and wasn't a factor in the majors. Meanwhile, Mickelson had top-five finishes at Augusta National and Bethpage.

Both have struggled in recent weeks, but a quick turnaround and a FedExCup title would likely leave a nice impression on their peers.

Of those other five names, you have to like Stricker's consistency. Besides his two wins, he has a couple of seconds and a third. He also finished tied for sixth at the Masters. And then consider this -- Stricker had posted a top-10 finish in every month this season except June. From a week-to-week standpoint, only Woods has been most consistent this year.

DEFENDING PLAYER OF YEAR. Having spent all year working on his swing adjustments, Harrington hasn't put up much of a defense. That is, until the last three weeks, when he's been in the hunt on each Sunday.

In terms of this year's race, he remains on the outside looking in. But he's not willing to give up the title just yet.

"I'm running out of time in terms of this year, and maybe that's a little bit why I played better the last couple of weeks," he said. "I've only got three more weeks to do anything this year. So there is a little bit of urgency in my game at the moment, and certainly that's helped me play a bit better of late."

LONGSHOTS. What if Slocum sweeps the Playoffs events and wins the FedExCup title? Or what if another player wins the next three events to claim the title? How would the voters view that?

"If I ran the table," Slocum said with a sly smile, "then we could talk about it."

Yes, the probability of pulling off such a feat is harder than finding bad clam chowder in New England. And a productive three-week stretch in the Playoffs might not carry enough weight for a season-long award.

But what if someone such as Nick Watney or Retief Goosen or Sean O'Hair, all winners earlier this year, wins the FedExCup (and presumably THE TOUR Championship)? What if one of them wins twice in the next three weeks? Would three wins in a season, along with the FedExCup title, trump five wins?

Woods himself said that the player who's the hottest at the end of the year has the advantage over the player who may have hit a hot streak earlier this season.

"Playing well at the end of the year in the big events ... it can swing votes," Woods said, "because usually guys remember what you've done later in the year. There have been guys that have won three or four tournaments, but they were all at the beginning of the year. Somebody does it all late in the year, then people remember those."

Fortunately for Tiger, nobody forgets what he does. Five wins makes a strong, strong case. But, for now, the jury is still out.