PGA playoffs will be missing big names

July 20, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

Three majors down, one to go.

And while the attention now shifts to Atlanta for the final major of the year at the PGA Championship, right behind that is the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour. With only five tournaments left in the regular season, the standings indicate what kind of year it has been.

Two of the major champions — Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke — are not PGA Tour members and won’t be there.

Tiger Woods, who hasn’t played since he withdrew from The Players Championship in May and hasn’t earned any points since the Masters, dropped three spots to No. 129 in the FedEx Cup standings. Only the top 125 qualify for the playoff-opener, and the fields are then trimmed to 100 players, then 70 and 30 for the Tour Championship.

But he’s not alone in his struggles. Three players who finished in the top 10 in the FedEx Cup last year are not among the top 100 in the standings, and two of them might not get to the first playoff event — Ernie Els, Paul Casey and Retief Goosen.