Featured Groups: TOUR Championship

The final event of the 2016-17 season has arrived, and the PGA TOUR’s biggest prize is at stake. Any one of the 30 players in the TOUR Championship field has a mathematical shot at winning the FedExCup, although the top 5 in FedExCup points – Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Marc Leishman and Jon Rahm — are the only ones who control their own fates. A win at East Lake would guarantee any of them the FedExCup. PGA TOUR LIVE will carry coverage of the TOUR Championship starting Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Golf Channel’s coverage will begin at 1 p.m. and PGA TOUR Radio’s play-by-play coverage will begin at noon ET. In addition, fans will be able to enjoy the TOUR Championship with a live Virtual Reality experience viewed on Samsung Gear VR headsets through the PGA TOUR VR Live app in the Oculus store. Fans without a headset can watch the 360 video stream on Twitter and Periscope. The Live and on-demand VR and 360 video coverage will showcase holes 1, 15 and 18. For more information, click here. The 30 players in the field will be paired in twosomes for each round – and unlike at regular TOUR events, will be repaired after each round. Pairings for the first round are based on current FedExCup rankings. Here are the Featured Groups for the first round at East Lake (FedExCup ranking in parentheses): JORDAN SPIETH (1), JUSTIN THOMAS (2) – Thankfully these two are such great friends because they’ve been spending a lot of time together recently. Due to their positions in the FedExCup standings, they’ve been in the same group six times during the Playoffs – Spieth has shot the better score three times, and Thomas twice. This will be the 24th time in their PGA TOUR careers that they’ve been in the same group, and the 14th time this season. Thomas has won twice in his last four starts – including the Dell Technologies Championship, the second event of the FedExCup Playoffs — while Spieth has posted two runner-ups and a tie for seventh in his first three Playoffs starts. Spieth is the only past FedExCup champ in the field this week; he won the title in 2015 by winning at East Lake. Rd. 1 tee time: 2 p.m. ET. DUSTIN JOHNSON (3), MARC LEISHMAN (4) – It’s a pairing of two of the three Playoffs events winners. Johnson beat Spieth in a sudden-death playoff at THE NORTHERN TRUST, while Leishman romped to a five-shot wire-to-wire victory at the BMW Championship – a win that moved him inside the top five of the FedExCup standings. Leishman has arguably been the best player in the last two events and is trying to take the Billy Horschel path to the FedExCup title. In 2014, Horschel played well at TPC Boston, won the next event and then carried that momentum to a win at East Lake. This will be the first time in four years that Johnson and Leishman have been paired at a TOUR event – not counting a Foursomes match at the Presidents Cup two years ago in Korea. Rd. 1 tee time: 1:50 p.m. ET. JON RAHM (5), RICKIE FOWLER (6) — Rahm is the only player in the Playoffs to produce top-5 finishes in each of the first three events and will be getting his first look at East Lake. Fowler comes off a tie for second at the BMW Championship – his first top-10 since a tie for fifth at the PGA Championship. While Rahm is guaranteed to win the FedExCup title with a win at East Lake, Fowler is in great shape too – a year ago, Rory McIlroy won the FedExCup title from the No. 6 position. It’s a terrific opportunity for Fowler, who last year was No. 31 in points and did not play at East Lake. This will be the 15th round this season that Rahm and Fowler have been in the same group. Rd. 1 tee time: 1:40 p.m. ET. HIDEKI MATSUYAMA (7), JUSTIN ROSE (8) – It’s been a frustrating Playoffs for Matsuyama but a very productive one for Rose. Matsuyama was the No. 1 seed after the PGA TOUR Season, but a missed cut, a tie for 23rd and tie for 47th left him outside the top five. Meanwhile, Rose is one of five players who began the Playoffs outside the top 30 bubble but played his way in from the No. 32 position. With consecutive T-10s followed by a tie for second last week, Rose is one of three players (Spieth, Rahm) with top-10 finishes in all three events. This will be just the second PGA TOUR stroke-play event that Matsuyama and Rose have been paired. Rd. 1 tee time: 1:30 p.m. ET.

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