Australia’s five remaining golfers in the lucrative US PGA Tour playoffs have run out of mulligan’s and must perform or perish at Crooked Stick Golf Club this week.
The final 70 golfers in the FedEx Cup playoffs tee it up in Indiana with dreams of qualifying for the prestigious Tour Championship in Atlanta on September 20-23, where someone will claim the season long points race and its $US10 million ($A9.80 million) bonus.
But with 19 of the 30 spots already mathematically taken by some heavy hitters including points leader and world No.1 Rory McIlroy, fellow 2012 major winners Bubba Watson, Webb Simpson and Ernie Els plus the likes of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, it leaves just 11 spots up for grabs.
Adam Scott, John Senden, Greg Chalmers, Marc Leishman and Geoff Ogilvy are left flying the Australian flag, part of the scrum of 51 players fighting for 11 spots.
Scott and Senden are the best placed to move on thanks to their strong finishes in last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship.
The Queenslanders will roughly need to finish inside the top 39 players at Crooked Stick to book their ticket to Atlanta.
Despite a change in venue Senden will come in with confidence having gone within a few strokes of claiming his second win on the US Tour 12 months ago, falling just shy of winner Justin Rose in second alone.
For Leishman and Chalmers it’s a tougher prospect. They must find a way to finish inside the top six to have a chance at the biggest payday of their careers.
Chalmers’ only top 10 this season was a ninth place finish in the opening playoff event two weeks ago.
Leishman is the only Australian to win on tour this season while he also has a third place finish on the resume in 2012.
Ogilvy will need to repeat his heroics from last year if he is to survive.
The 2006 US Open champion needed a top three finish in the corresponding event last season and promptly came third behind Rose and Senden.
This year he’s been given the only slightly better scenario of needed to finish in the top four, but unlike last year, Ogilvy has just one top 10 finish this season, a T9 in the British Open.
“Whatever the scenario turns out to be it comes down to one thing, I have to play well,” Ogilvy said.
“I have been playing well but now I need to score better.
“I’m just not getting the scores out of my good play which is a little frustrating and something I’ll have to look at in the offseason but I remain positive because the game is in good shape.
“I am playing well enough to get it done.”
Ogilvy, one of the best match play golfers in the world, will try to bring some of the ‘backs against the wall’, competitive match play psyche into his game this week.
“When you play 15-20 years of regular golf tournaments there is that feeling of, there’s always next week and you can get mentally lazy if you’re not careful.
“But this is the last chance so I’m sure I’ll be up and in a good state mentally throughout.
“It’s like match play – if you are one down through three holes you aren’t worried yet but when you’re two down with two to play you have to press.
“I am one down with one to play and I have to make a move.”