Pettersson wins the final event before the FedExCup Playoffs / Pettersson câştigă ultimul turneu înaintea Playoff-urilor FedExCup

Carl Pettersson of Sweden won the Wyndham Championship

Credit: H. Scott Hoffmann - Associated Press

The last tournament of the 33 week regular season is over and the reset for the FedExCup playoffs can be done to find out who the 144 players are who will continue the fight for the coveted prize.

But until then, let's have a look at this week's event at the Sedgefield Country Club, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Wyndham Championship, as it is now called, has changed its name numerous times from the Greater Greensboro Open to the Chrysler Classic of Greensboro, but Sam Snead still remains the player who has won this tournament 8 times, holding the record for most wins in a PGA TOUR event.

The par 70 course and the fairly good weather conditions allowed for some very low scores this week, with the final aggregate score of the winner at 21-under-par.

The first round's worst score was a 6-over-par posted by Trevor Dodds, as the field went pretty low on Thursday. Martin Laird of Scotland and the American Bob Heintz had scores of 63, while Garrett Willis and Scott Sterling opened their tournament with 64s each. All four players were outside the top 144 in the FedExCup standings before this week and were looking for a great result which could catapult them into the playoffs.

Others, like Scott McCarron, Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson were trying to improve their position once the points reset would come. They started off with great rounds as well.

Friday came and apart from a few rain showers late in the afternoon, the sun shined upon some very happy scorecards: after an opening 64, Carl Pettersson easily topped the leaderboard on Friday with a 61 (9-under-par), with a round which included 11 birdies and 2 bogeys.
The cut was drawn at -3. Vijay Singh missed it with a 69 and a 72.

Saturday brought Rich Beem into the spotlight, who, after Briny Baird's 62, had the second-best round on moving-day; no need to say, he move up all right: from -3 to -10, but still 9 shots behind the 54-hole leader, the Swede Carl Pettersson. Beem was 166th in the FedExCup standings and needed a top-10 finish to play in the August-September events.

Sunday's round saw people fight for another cut: the one at 144 players in the standings. And this fight was won by many in the last few holes at Sedgefield. Rich Beem, for example, had 6 birdies and one bogey, before the 16th tee, but he still needed to make up some lost ground. And he did just that by finishing 2-4-3 on the 3-4-4 finishing holes. The two extra birdies helped him to a deserved 3rd place, -16 through his last 35 holes.

J.J. Henry was 177th before the event but his round of 62 on Sunday assured him a tie for 4th in this tournament and a place in the playoffs.

Carl Pettersson had only one real challenger in the last round: Scott McCarron. And although McCarron was in the lead at one time (on the 12th tee), he finished two shots behind Pettersson, who played the best golf this week in what is his adopted hometown since living in the USA.

Here are the top 10 players and their ties:

1		Carl Pettersson	-21		64	61	66	68
2		Scott McCarron	-19		65	64	64	68
3		Rich Beem	-17		70	67	63	63
T4		J.J. Henry	-16		70	66	66	62
T4		Martin Laird	-16		63	74	64	63
T6		Tim Clark	-15		64	67	68	66
T6		John Senden	-15		66	66	67	66
T6		Kevin Streelman	-15		66	64	67	68
T9		Shane Bertsch	-14		67	68	67	64
T9		Mark Wilson	-14		68	67	67	64
T9		Michael Letzig	-14		67	66	67	66
T9		Bob Sowards	-14		65	66	68	67
T9		Jerry Kelly	-14		66	65	68	67
T9		Briny Baird	-14		67	68	62	69

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Articolul în limba română, în curând...

Iată primii zece concurenţi şi egalii lor:

1		Carl Pettersson	-21		64	61	66	68
2		Scott McCarron	-19		65	64	64	68
3		Rich Beem	-17		70	67	63	63
T4		J.J. Henry	-16		70	66	66	62
T4		Martin Laird	-16		63	74	64	63
T6		Tim Clark	-15		64	67	68	66
T6		John Senden	-15		66	66	67	66
T6		Kevin Streelman	-15		66	64	67	68
T9		Shane Bertsch	-14		67	68	67	64
T9		Mark Wilson	-14		68	67	67	64
T9		Michael Letzig	-14		67	66	67	66
T9		Bob Sowards	-14		65	66	68	67
T9		Jerry Kelly	-14		66	65	68	67
T9		Briny Baird	-14		67	68	62	69