FedExCup Insider: Charley Hoffman’s impressive streak on the line at Dell Technologies Championship

Charley Hoffman and Phil Mickelson both hail from San Diego. They were teammates on last year’s Presidents Cup team. The comparisons usually stop there. Hoffman has a strong resume, one that many of his peers would be happy to have, but Mickelson is one of the most accomplished players in the history of the game.  Hoffman and Mickelson do share one more similarity, though. They are the only players to qualify for the BMW Championship in every season since the FedExCup’s inception in 2007. It’s an impressive display of consistency, requiring a top-70 finish in the FedExCup standings. Mickelson is 10th in this season’s standings. Next week’s tee time at Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia is guaranteed, and he’s a safe bet to advance to the TOUR Championship for the ninth time in the FedExCup era. Hoffman’s BMW streak is in a much more precarious position. He is 75th in the FedExCup standings, 45 points behind No. 70 Kevin Streelman. Hoffman returns to a site of past success this week. He earned the second of his four PGA TOUR victories at TPC Boston in 2010, shooting a final-round 62 to win by five shots. Five years later, Hoffman shot a second-round 63 to take the 36-hole lead at TPC Boston. He finished third after shooting 76-67 on the weekend. “This is one of those courses you get on the tee, (it sets) up well, and the visuals are good. And I tend to make a few more putts than average for me out here on these greens, which is nice,â€� he said in 2015. Hoffman finished a career-best fourth in the FedExCup after winning at TPC Boston in 2010. He’s qualified for the TOUR Championship in two of the past three seasons, but now he has work to do to avoid the earliest exit of his FedExCup career.  Hoffman, the lone player to qualify for this year’s Playoffs without a top-10, began the postseason ranked 98th in the FedExCup. He jumped 23 spots with his 20th-place finish at THE NORTHERN TRUST.  He could have climbed even higher, though, if not for bogeys on two of his final three holes. He three-putted the final hole from 38 feet to drop five spots on the leaderboard. Only Bryce Molder (2013) and Ernie Els (2011) have made it to the third Playoffs stop without a top-10 finish, but Hoffman could join that short list. The projections say that a 25th-place finish could result in safe passage from Boston to Philadelphia. Hoffman has made the cut in 75 percent of his starts this season. He has nine top-25s but hasn’t finished better than his T12 at Augusta National. Another BMW start is still within reach, though. ODDS AND ENDS • Aaron Wise took the lead in the Rookie of the Year race with his fifth-place finish at THE NORTHERN TRUST. He leapt from 27th to 15th in the FedExCup standings, taking one step closer to the TOUR Championship. The T5 continued an interesting trend for Wise. In his last 10 starts, he has either missed the cut or finished in the top 6. That stretch includes a runner-up finish at Wells Fargo and AT&T Byron Nelson victory in back-to-back starts. He also finished T6 at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. Wise is 21 spots ahead of his fellow rookie, RSM Classic champion Austin Cook. Cook is just 48 points behind fellow Arkansas alum Andrew Landry, who holds the 30th spot in the FedExCup standings. Wise and Cook are the only rookies in the FedExCup’s top 70. Five rookies remain in the FedExCup Playoffs, though. RBC Heritage champion Satoshi Kodaira (85th in the FedExCup), Massachusetts native Peter Uihlein (83) and Keith Mitchell (78) also will play at TPC Boston. • Nick Watney was 102nd in the FedExCup at the start of the Playoffs. He needed to earn  points at last week’s THE NORTHERN TRUST just to keep his postseason alive. Watney’s T11 at Ridgewood guaranteed him a start at this week’s Dell Technologies Championship and put a return to Aronimink within reach. Aronimink, which is hosting next week’s BMW Championship, was the site of Watney’s win in the 2011 Quicken Loans National. Watney jumped 35 spots in the FedExCup standings last week to No. 67. He last played the BMW Championship in 2015. His THE NORTHERN TRUST finish was his second-best of the season. Watney was one of 10 players to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs with one or fewer top-10s this season. A runner-up finish at the Wells Fargo Championship, his best finish in three years, accounted for half of his 491 points in the regular season. Aronimink twice hosted the Quicken Loans National. Justin Rose earned the second of his nine PGA TOUR wins at Aronimink in 2010. He’s sixth in this season’s FedExCup standings. • The best shot of Bronson Burgoon’s career clinched the NCAA Championship. He hit a gap wedge within inches of the hole at Inverness’ 18th hole to give Texas A&M the 2009 NCAA Championship (Burgoon beat Landry in the championship’s clinching match).   “I play better when I’ve got a little bit of pressure on me. I always have,â€� Burgoon said Sunday. He proved it once again at THE NORTHERN TRUST. A Sunday 66 continued Burgoon’s rapid rise up the FedExCup standings.  He was 160th in the standings at the end of June, but finished T6-T30-T2 in his next three starts to crack the top 100. His T11 at THE NORTHERN TRUST moved him from 111th to 73rd in the FedExCup standings. Sunday was a good day for Texas A&M Aggies. His former teammate, Andrea Pavan, won his first European Tour title in a final-round showdown with Padraig Harrington. Pavan also was on that 2009 title team. Burgoon made the cut at Ridgewood with just a shot to spare, then shot 67-66 on the weekend. Only THE NORTHERN TRUST winner Bryson DeChambeau (63-69) shot lower over the final 36 holes.

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