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This weekend, Tiger Woods needs one of his best finishes of the year if he wants to have any chance of repeating as FedExCup champion.  Tiger narrowly made the playoffs, then faced elimination in each of first two playoff tournaments. The past two weeks, Tiger has played well enough to move up in the standings and advance by getting in the top 12 of the leaderboard.  At this weekend’s BMW Championship, he’ll likely need to do better.

Only the top 30 in the standings advance to the final tournament, The Tour Championship in Atlanta in two weeks. Tiger is currently 51st in the standings and will need to finish in the top five this weekend just to be able to play in Atlanta. The other big number in the standings is the top five — anyone in the top five spots can win the FedExCup championship and the $10 million prize by winning the final tournament in Atlanta.  The other 25 golfers in the final field will need to win and get help.  For Tiger to crack the top five and control his own destiny, he’ll need to win or possibly finish second.

Right now, 13 golfers are guaranteed to be in the 30-man final field at The Tour Championship: Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman, Steve Stricker, Jason Day, Luke Donald, Martin Laird, Ernie Els, Hunter Mahan, Geoff Ogilvy, Justin Rose, Jim Furyk, Bubba Watson, and Ryan Palmer.  Only Kuchar is guaranteed to be in the top five in the standings. Another seven golfers will probably advance to Atlanta as long as they stay out of the bottom five of this week’s 70-man field: Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Ben Crane, Jeff Overton, and Retief Goosen. Hoffman and Stricker will probably stay in the top five in the standings as long as they don’t finish in the bottom five this weekend.  Day will probably need a top seven finish to control his destiny at Atlanta, while most others will need to finish in the top two or win.

Tiger’s not the only Ryder Cup player who need a high finish this week to avoid being eliminated.  Stewart Cink probably needs to finish 11th to advance. Ian Poulter needs to finish seventh or better to be sure he’ll advance.