Golf

Jordan Spieth believes he has a free roll at BMW Championship

World No 2 plans risky strategy in Chicago in bid to claim $10m bonus

Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker putt on the 11th green during practice for the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA
Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker putt on the 11th green during practice for the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Illinois. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA
Wed Sept 16 2015 - 15:28

World number two Jordan Spieth believes he is "free-rolling" towards a possible $10 million payday in the FedEx Cup play-offs.

Whatever happens in the BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Chicago, Spieth will be among the top five players in the standings at next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta.

And that means the Masters and US Open champion would be guaranteed to win the overall FedEx Cup title – and with it that eight-figure bonus – if he was to claim a fifth victory of the year at East Lake.

“It’s really just a free-rolling scenario,” the 22-year-old American said.

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“You want to win because you want to win a PGA Tour event, (but) as far as the final tally for the FedEx Cup, it’s not going to make much of a difference if I win this week or finish 70th because I’ll be in the top five and you control your own destiny.

“But it is an interesting scenario because of the reshuffle before the last event, and it makes you feel like you may as well go for broke here and play some shots under pressure that are more dangerous so that you can almost have it ready for next week.”

Spieth has made an early exit from the first two play-off events, but with the 70-man field facing no cut this week, he joked it was nice to be able to tell hotel staff he would definitely not be checking out until Sunday.

“I feel very confident about where I’m at right this second,” he said. “As the week goes on, I’ll probably work more and more again to try and peak for next week, approach it like it’s a Major championship.

“The weeks before Majors this year have been good weeks for me, so I feel confident about the way we’ll perform this week as well.”

Before the Masters, Spieth tied for second at the Houston Open and ahead of the US Open he tied for third at the Memorial Tournament. Before attempting to win the third leg of the calendar Grand Slam in the British Open at St Andrews, he won the John Deere Classic.

Spieth is second in the current standings behind US PGA champion Jason Day, who won the first play-off event in New Jersey, with Rickie Fowler third after his victory in the Deutsche Bank Championship a fortnight ago.

Former US Open champion Justin Rose (13th) and world number one Rory McIlroy (17th) are strong favourites to progress to the Tour Championship, but Paul Casey needs to finish in the top half of the field and Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter all require a top-three finish to move into the top 30 and qualify for Atlanta.