Top 30 on the FedEx standings  play this week, with "starting strokes" so the #1 ranked player coming into the event is on -10 , those ranked 26-30 are on level par, so have a lot of ground to make up. Full starting positions are below the "good luck" sign off.

 

This format started in 2019, that year Rory McIlroy prevailed after started from -5 and would have actually won from -3 and been in a playoff from -2 , Patrick Cantlay (-10 this week) actually started on -8 that year and finished T21st so I will not be putting on my running spikes to take the circa 4.50 on him winning !

 

Last year Dustin Johnson, who was playing a different game to anyone else on the planet in 2020, started at -10 and won easily.

 

To be honest, it is a very small sample size and no one at -2 or better is out of contention, but only one golfer out of the twenty who have tried from -1 or worse has even made the top 10.

 

I think a lot has to do with mindset and if you can just put the start , or handicap to one side and just play the course, especially if East Lake suits, then you are part way there. I would just view this as a five round tournament and whatever my position was on Thursday morning, there are four rounds to play and I am within 10 strokes (max) of the lead.

 

 

 

Good luck !

 

 

 

10 under	Patrick Cantlay
8 under	Tony Finau
7 under	Bryson DeChambeau
6 under	Jon Rahm
5 under	Cameron Smith
4 under	Justin Thomas, Harris English, Abraham Ancer, Jordan Spieth, Sam Burns
3 under	Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, Viktor Hovland, Louis Oosthuizen, Dustin Johnson
2 under	Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na, Brooks Koepka
1 under	Corey Conners, Hideki Matsuyama, Stewart Cink, Joaquin Niemann, Scottie Scheffler,
Even par	Daniel Berger, Erik van Rooyen, Sergio Garcia, Billy Horschel, Patrick Reed