Player of the Year favorite? What day is today?

NORTON, Mass. -- The clarity hilarity effectively began around four weeks ago at the season's final major. Nothing has changed since.

Ernie Els was off to a nice start at the PGA Championship when a topical aside was tossed his way that was quickly shrugged off -- just like most everybody has with similar opportunities since. At least, with clubs in their hands.

Els, 40, won twice on the PGA Tour in March in a resurrection season that seemed pointed toward his first Player of the Year award. Winning the final major championship of the year at Whistling Straits would have effectively cemented it.

"Can't think about that yet," Els said between early rounds. "Besides, there are a half-dozen guys who can still win it."

The cast hasn't winnowed, only widened.

"There's a lot on the line," Steve Stricker said Thursday. "And it's a good time to play well and see what happens."

With the usual suspects having largely forgettable seasons, the race for the tour's Jack Nicklaus Trophy looks like a group photo. As if the $10 million bonus on the table for winning the FedEx Cup points sweepstakes isn't enough, the circuit's top subjective award is there for the taking, and an unprecedented number has the opportunity to step forward and collect with three star-laden FedEx events left.

Five different players have won two PGA Tour events this year, but none has won a major, which is what's really complicating the process of identifying a front-runner for top-player honors. Phil Mickelson won the Masters, but the final three Grand Slam events were won by players who are not members of the U.S. tour -- a historic first. Trouble for Lefty is, he hasn't remotely sniffed a second title in months.

Lefty made a wisecrack about the last time the season had progressed this far without identifying a favorite, though has a point.

"It's probably got to date back to the '95, '96 time frame, I would guess, before it's been locked up, yeah," he said.

Deutsche Bank Championship

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Translated: Tiger Woods' first full season was 1997. Woods has won the award in 10 of the 13 seasons since but hasn't contended late in the final round in 2010. For once, Woody isn't even in the conversation, nor is Vijay Singh or Padraig Harrington, the only others to secure the top-player honors in the past decade. In fact, none of the three has been within a mile of hoisting a trophy all year.

Of course, the confusion for tour members, who select the top player via secret ballot, is stellar news for the FedEx Cup scenario, which this week cruises into TPC Boston for the Deutsche Bank Championship, where a litany of studs have won titles, including Stricker, Mickelson, Singh, Woods and Adam Scott.

It's a fitting site, really. The hamlet of Foxborough, where the New England Patriots play, is just around the corner from the tournament site. There has been some NFL-style parity on the tour this season.

"There's been a lot of good golf played by a lot of different people, 100 percent," said veteran Heath Slocum, who won the FedEx opener last year. "I think it's going to be definitely very compelling for the playoffs.

"I hope that trend continues through these playoffs that we see a bunch of -- I don't want to say different names -- but you see a lot of good stories. I think it's good for our sport right now."

For at least six players, it could be a doubly winner-take-all proposition.

"Somebody steps up," Slocum said. "That might be Player of the Year as well -- the FedEx champion. It's been one of those years, seems like there's been a lot of really good golf. A bevy of players."

The latest to join consideration was last weekend's winner, veteran Matt Kuchar, who won his first title of 2010 after nine previous top 10 finishes. He amassed the third-best cumulative record at the majors this year, but didn't threaten to win any. Still, as far as tour statistics go, Kuchar has been the steadiest player of the year.

He wanted no part of the top-player discussion Sunday, however.

"You'd have to show me a list," Kuchar said. "I'm glad I don't have a vote for that. I'm glad I don't. There's been a lot of great performances. I'm not even going to try to think about it."

Actually, brother, all tour members get to log a vote at season's end.

"I normally pass that aside," Kooch said. "I try not to think about that. I let my wife or somebody else handle that for me."

What, he's afraid he'll have to serve jury duty? As close as the tally could get, he had better not waste his voting opportunity.

Only once in the past decade has the tour meandered this late into the season without one or two clear-cut favorites. But even in 2003, when it went down to the season finale, the Tour Championship, Singh and Woods were the runaway best players on tour.

Ernie Els started strong at the PGA but blew his chance to solidify his Player of the Year case. (Getty Images)

In a way, maybe nobody should be surprised. The 2010 season opener was won by the supremely talented Geoff Ogilvy, who has barely been heard from since. The somewhat disappointing part is that, for about 15 years, we have been waiting to see what would happen if Woods took his foot off the collective neck of his peers. The time is now. Nobody has filled the void.

Handicapping the list is a purely subjective exercise -- and none of these players has ever before won the Nicklaus award.

• Jim Furyk won twice before May rolled around, at Tampa and Hilton Head, but was most noticeable recently for getting disqualified last week for missing his pro-am tee time. Opportunity lost.

• Els won twice in March at two huge events, Doral and Bay Hill, but hasn't threatened to win since fading on the back nine at the U.S. Open. Like Furyk, he has never won the Nicklaus Trophy.

• England's Justin Rose, having a career year, won two big invitationals at the AT&T National and Memorial, then got snubbed for a spot on the European Ryder Cup team. It would be trumpeted far and wide if he won the FedEx title and stuck it up Colin Montgomerie's nose.

• Hunter Mahan, the only player in his 20s on this list, won early in Phoenix with a memorable final round, then sputtered for a while before drilling a top-tier field at Firestone last month for his third career win. It hasn't been a steady year, but nobody has won more tournaments.

• Stricker, as usual, is being mostly overlooked, even though is nickname is "Mr. September." His first win came at venerable Riviera and he set a 54-hole tour scoring record in winning the John Deere, where he shot 60 in the first round. He's second in FedEx points and the defending champion this week, and if he won the Nicklaus, it would be well-received by everybody.

• Mickelson has left more on the table than anybody else. With Woods on the shelf early, Lefty failed to win, and Mickelson has misfired in 10 consecutive chances to unseat Woods as world No. 1, including last week's missed cut at The Barclays. Mickelson did win a major and amassed the best cumulative record in the four of them, so a FedEx win would almost certainly earn him his first Nicklaus Trophy.

• Kuchar has become the latest interloper and nobody, nobody, has been more consistent. Kuchar began posting top 10 finishes in Hawaii, and didn't stop in trips to the U.S. mainland, Scotland or Canada. He leads the tour in scoring average and in the all-around statistical category, which measures eight key arithmetic indices. That said, he'll need to win another tournament to have a chance.

Who's to say that he -- or even somebody else not on the short list -- can't? Two years ago, Camilo Villegas won two of the final three FedEx events, the first victories of his career.

So for this lot, there are three massive prizes in the offing over the next month: a shiny tournament trophy in three locales, the FedEx fortune and the Nicklaus award.

The guy who times it right? He can really bring the bling.