The FedExCup Playoffs are upon us! The PGA TOUR’s postseason gets underway Thursday at Ridgewood Country, a historic A.W. Tillinghast design in Paramus, New Jersey. This classic course will be the setting for the top players in the FedExCup standings. Players are grouped for the first two rounds based on their FedExCup ranking, so that guarantees some star-studded Featured Groups, including the top trio of Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka. PGA TOUR LIVE’s Thursday and Friday broadcasts will begin at 7:30 a.m. After the Featured Groups, LIVE will transition to Featured Holes coverage of Ridgewood’s par-3 15th and par-5 17th holes. Saturday’s Featured Holes coverage will begin at 1 p.m., while Sunday’s coverage will begin at noon. PGA TOUR LIVE also can be viewed on Twitter and Facebook Watch. Twitter’s broadcast will begin at 7:30 a.m. on both Thursday and Friday and run for approximately an hour. Facebook Watch will offer weekend coverage from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. As in past years, we will be conducting a fan vote on Twitter to select a Featured Group on Friday.  We will announce the group with the most votes on Thursday’s broadcast. Here’s a look at this week’s Featured Groups (Note: FedExCup rankings in parentheses; all times Eastern): THURSDAY Tiger Woods (20), Marc Leishman (22), Tommy Fleetwood (23): The only two-time winner of the FedExCup is back in the Playoffs for the first time in five years. He’ll be joined by one of the stars of the 2017 postseason and an international star making his FedExCup Playoffs debut. Leishman finished sixth in last year’s playoffs after winning the second postseason event, the Dell Technologies Championship. Tee times: 7:54 a.m. off No. 9 tee on Thursday; 12:55 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday. Dustin Johnson (1), Justin Thomas (2), Brooks Koepka (3): The FedExCup leader, reigning FedExCup champ and the only winner of two majors in 2018 are all grouped in this star-studded threesome. Thomas’ strong defense of the FedExCup includes three victories this season. No one has ever gone back-to-back in the FedExCup. Johnson has finished second and fourth in the past two FedExCups, but is looking to hoist the Cup for the first time. He also has three wins this season. Koepka is coming off victories at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. These three also are the top three in the Official World Golf Ranking. Tee times: 8:05 a.m. off No. 9 tee on Thursday; 1:06 p.m. off No. 1 tee on Friday. FRIDAY Justin Rose (4), Bubba Watson (5), Jason Day (6): This group has combined for seven victories this season. They’ll be jostling for position in the all-important Top 5 in the FedExCup standings; the Top 5 entering the TOUR Championship can clinch the FedExCup with a win at East Lake, regardless of how their closest competitors perform. Watson responded to the worst finish of his FedExCup career with his first three-win season. Rose and Day have two wins apiece. All three are looking to add the FedExCup to resumes that include major championships. Tee times: 1:06 p.m. off No. 1 tee on Thursday; 8:05 a.m. off No. 9 tee on Friday. Here are the options fans can vote on for Friday’s second Featured Group (additional information to come). 7:54 a.m. off 9th: Patrick Reed (10), Phil Mickelson (11), Tony Finau (12) 8:16 a.m. off 9th: Jon Rahm (13), Patrick Cantlay (14), Patton Kizzire (15) 8:16 a.m. off 1st: Brandt Snedeker (30), Austin Cook (31), Brian Harman (32) 8:27 a.m. off 1st: Chesson Hadley (24), Pat Perez (25), Andrew Landry (26)

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NOTE: For the first three events of the FedExCup Playoffs, Rob will focus only on golfers outside the bubble to advance. In this first edition, all five below open the Playoffs outside the top 100 in points. Danny Lee … At 103rd in the FedExCup standings, he’s nearest the bubble to advance of the five featured here, but that’s fact over friction. The 28-year-old salvaged his berth with top 25s in his last three starts after dropping to 124th in points. While scoring is always relative, it’s still impressive that he connected sub-70s in each of those tournaments: Barbasol Championship (T21), RBC Canadian Open (T6), Wyndham Championship (T24). Given his form, the overall resurgence and the likelihood that he might need no better than a top 50 play on, he’s an easy call. Harold Varner III … Turned around his season in July with a T5 at Greenbrier, a solo sixth at TPC Deere Run and a T17 at Glen Abbey. The Charlotte native then signed for four rounds in the 60s at Sedgefield, but that was worth but a T53 in the shootout. It didn’t matter in the construct of getting to the Playoffs for the third time in as many tries because he’s 106th in points. He’s also survived the cut in all four starts in his Playoffs experience, the highlight a T20 at last year’s NORTHERN TRUST that vaulted him from 123rd to 91st in points. Since the current points system was first utilized in 2015, he and Camilo Villegas (also 123rd in 2015) are the lowest seeds to advance. Martin Laird … While he’s not necessarily in the crosshairs of converging trends, it’ll do for the purposes of the objective here. Debuted in the FedExCup Playoffs with a T7 at Ridgewood in 2008, and then served as Matt Kuchar’s playoff victim upon return in 2010. Laird didn’t qualify in 2014, but he’s essentially the same talent who we’ve always known him to be at now 35 years of age. Balanced nicely in the long-term but still tilts toward the streaky over consistency. Seeded 113th and just two weeks removed from a T15 at the Barracuda Championship where he’s always performed well. Tyler Duncan and Sam Ryder … It’s been three years since a PGA TOUR rookie started the Playoffs outside the top 100 and advanced. This duo is chasing what Zac Blair and Carlos Ortiz achieved as rookies in 2015. Duncan (108th in points) finally hit a wall at the Wyndham Championship where he missed the cut by six strokes. It ended his streak of consecutive paydays at 12. He’s one of the most accurate tee-to-green, so it stands to reason that relatively unfamiliar putting surfaces will help below-average putting, his weakness. Ryder (114th) was outside the bubble until going T2-T7 at the John Deere and Barbasol. He also struggles with the putter, but he’s even more precise with his ball-striking than Duncan. Seeing that a top-30 finish is both the ticket to TPC Boston and a reasonable expectation for both rookies, Blair and Ortiz should be getting ready for company.

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