ESPN Golf

For the first time in history, the PGA Tour is ending its season with a four-tournament playoff series that will culminate with a $10 million bonus going to the winner. It is called the FedEx Cup, and it has been the source of plenty of conjecture as the first tournament gets under way this week.

A season-long points race has been in place since the first tournament in Hawaii, and it concluded Sunday at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. Not that everybody totally understood -- or understands -- how it works.

Tiger Woods, to no one's surprise, finished the season with the most points and will be the No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs, which begin at The Barclays -- although Woods will take the week off, a sort of self-imposed "bye."

Woods is all about winning and knows that, ultimately, a few top finishes will do the job. But he admitted that not everyone is likely to have read the fine print.

"We'll see how it all pans out," he said at the PGA Championship. "I think if you asked most of the players, they probably don't know what the point structure is once you qualify. What's the breakdown? What do you start? I think next year we'll have a better feel for it."

Well, to answer Tiger's questions …

• The points: Players earned points at PGA Tour events all year. A win was worth 4,500 points, down to 50 for making the cut. The major championships, the Players Championship and the World Golf Championship events had slightly more points available. Events opposite those paid half the points of a regular event.

Regular-season points for PGA Tour members
Position:	1	2	3	4	5	10	30	70
Points:	4,500	2,700	1,700	1,200	1,000	675	170	50

• Who's playing? The top 144 players through the Wyndham Championship qualified for the playoffs. From there, the points were reset, with Woods starting out with 100,000 and Vijay Singh, who was second, at 99,000. The player in 144th position, Jeff Gove, has 84,700 points, which gives him a mathematical chance -- although highly unlikely -- of winning the FedEx Cup. He is probably more concerned about playing well enough to move into the top 120, which at least gets him another tournament in the playoffs.

Points entering playoffs
Position	Points
1	100,000
2	99,000
3	98,500
4	98,000
5	97,500
6	97,250
7	97,000
8	96,750
9	96,500
10	96,250
30	93,250
50	91,750
70	90,250
120	86,500
130	85,750
144	84,700

• Playoff events: Each tournament has a $7 million purse and will pay $1.26 million to the winner.

The Barclays will have a 36-hole cut. Only the top 120 players in the points standings after the first event will advance to next week's Deutsche Bank Championship outside Boston. There, the tournament again will have a 36-hole cut, with the top 70 finishers advancing to the BMW Championship outside Chicago. That tournament will not have a cut. The top 30 finishers in points advance to the Tour Championship in Atlanta, and the top points earner through that tournament will earn a $10 million bonus.

At each of the FedEx Cup playoff events, 50,000 points will be at stake, with the winner earning 9,000 points in each of the first three events and 10,300 points at the Tour Championship.

Playoff points
Position	First three events	Tour Championship
1	9,000	10,300
2	5,400	6,200
3	3,400	3,900
4	2,400	2,800
5	2,000	2,300
10	1,350	1,550
30	340	395
70	100	N/A

• Bonus pool: In addition to the prize money at each event, there is a $35 million bonus pool at stake, with the winner receiving $10 million. The second-place finisher gets $3 million, and payouts will be made all the way down to 150th place -- or six spots outside the cutoff for qualifying for the playoffs. Here's the catch: This bonus money is deferred. It will be paid immediately, but into a tax-deferred retirement account.

That came as a surprise to some players, who only recently learned that the payout would not be in cash.

"It would be really cool if we had this big check or we had cash to pay to the winner," said Phil Mickelson, who begins in fourth place with 98,000 points. "I think that would be good. Instead … guys won't see it for 20-plus years, and so it takes some of the luster out of it. You've got this corporation putting a $35 million check into this thing, and the players aren't going to see that money for 20-plus years, until well after they retire. … I think that would make it even more exciting if we did something like Vegas used to do. Like silver dollars … or to have a big check like the World Series of Poker with piles of cash. I think it would be cool."

Bob Harig is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.