Not much can prevent Rory McIlroy from winning the FedEx Cup and the $10 million, at least not in my alternate scoring universe, where the FedEx Cup champion is determined by total cumulative score under par through four playoff events.
Disqualification. Debilitating injury. A no-show. Withdrawal. Or possibly a rogue meteorite. Those are about the only scenarios in which McIlroy, the world's No. 1-ranked player who has dominated the tour's so-called playoffs, won't win it all.
McIlroy takes an 18-stroke lead over Tiger Woods into the Tour Championship's final round Sunday in my system. To simplify things, since the FedEx Cup system is overly complex, I combine a players score versus par for all four playoff events. Players who skip an event or miss the cut in one of the first two events are therefore ineligible.
Anyway, McIlroy's play has been relentless. He led Woods by 14 shots in my cumulative-par scoring system after the first round, then led Dustin Johnson by 14 after the second round. He expanded that to 18 over Woods on Saturday. Barring a miracle of some sort, the FedEx Cup chase is all but over.
Even without the five-shot bonus I award to each individual FedEx Cup event winner -- you should get some kind of reward for winning -- McIlroy would still take an eight-shot edge over Woods into the final round. McIlroy's total is 56 under par.
Dustin Johnson, third at -37, is the only other player within 20 shots of McIlroy, who won the last two playoff events.
Several of the top Tour Championship contenders aren't eligible for the cumulative-score title. Jim Furyk missed the cut at The Barclays, while Justin Rose and Bubba Watson missed the Deutsche Bank Championship cut.
Brandt Snedeker isn't closer because he shot 13 under at the Deutsche Bank and five under at the BMW, while McIlroy posted 20 under in winning each of those.
Through three rounds
-56 Rory McIlroy
-38 Tiger Woods
-37 Dustin Johnson
-34 Louis Oosthuizen
-33 Brandt Snedeker
-29 Phil Mickelson
-29 Ryan Moore
-24 Adam Scott
-23 Bo Van Pelt
-20 Lee Westwood
-18 Luke Donald
-15 Nick Watney
-15 Zach Johnson
-15 Robert Garrigus
-10 Steve Stricker
-8 John Senden
-3 John Huh
-2 Ernie Els
+2 Rickie Fowler
+11 Carl Pettersson
