Marc Leishman remembers the nervous feeling as he stood over a short putt on the final hole of the BMW Championship. It was his first time in the FedEx Cup, and the stakes were so enormous that he had a hard time blocking out everything but getting the ball in the cup.
The $10 million bonus? No, that was still a week away.
"I was thinking to myself, 'Hole this putt and you're in the Masters.' I wasn't thinking about $10 million," Leishman said. "To get into the Tour Championship . . . look, the money is awesome, but everything that came with it was better."
That's what makes the BMW Championship, which starts today at Crooked Stick, the most important playoff event in the FedEx Cup.
Only the top 30 from the 70-man field advance to the Tour Championship, and they are exempt for the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. That might not be a big deal to Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy.
But it means everything to players like Leishman, who had never played a major in his life until a tie for second at the 2009 BMW Championship got him into all four of them.
And it's a big deal to someone like William McGirt.
In his second year on tour, McGirt secured his card with a runner-up finish in the Canadian Open, and he has improved 35 spots in the playoffs to make it to Crooked Stick.
He played in his first major last month at Kiawah Island, an even greater thrill because it was in South Carolina, the state where he lives. McGirt is No. 39 in the FedEx Cup, closer than ever to his goal of getting to East Lake - and beyond.
"It would be nice to have $10 million," said McGirt, who has just over $1.7 million in career tour earnings. "But I've played in one major. My No. 1 goal is to get to Augusta at some point. I just want to play Augusta. I've been watching that tournament forever. And if I play well next week, we'll see what happens."
His wife Sarah, expecting their first child in January, was asked if she would rather have $10 million or a trip to Atlanta. She sweetly smiled at the misleading question.
Anyone who plays in the Tour Championship has a mathematical shot at $10 million because the points are reset. The higher a player is on the list, the better the odds.
