The golf season is over (sort of). The regular season concluded last week at the Wyndham Championship where Tiger Woods finished T10 Davis Love III won and got himself a berth into the FedEx Cup Playoffs which start this week.

The Playoffs will wrap up at the end of September and a $10 million pot of gold awaits this year's champion. Let's review the four events that make up the season-ending run and how this year could play out.

What is it?

The FedEx Cup Playoffs include the top 125 golfers on the FedEx Cup points list. Points are accumulated throughout the season and tallied at the end of the Wyndham Championship.

The four events are the Barclays, Deutsche Bank Championship, BMW Championship and Tour Championship. Each event pays like a normal tour event, but whoevers stands atop the pile at the end of the Tour Championship gets that $10 million prize.

After the Barclays, the field is reduced to 100 golfers. After the Deutsche Bank Championship, it is reduced to 70. After the BMW Championship, only 30 advance to the Tour Championship.

Anyone can win it all, theoretically, but those who performed mightily throughout the season (see: Spieth, Jordan) have a distinct advantage. For example, Spieth currently has 4,169 FedEx Cup points. The next closest is Jason Day with 2,459. In fact, no matter what Spieth does this week, only two golfers (Day and Bubba Watson) can catch up to him even if they win.

Last year, Dustin Johnson didn't play any of the first three events. He still made it to the Tour Championship (which he also didn't play). That's how important it is to have a big regular season.

The favorites

Jordan Spieth: 7-4 
Jason Day: 6-1 
Rory McIlroy: 8-1
Dustin Johnson: 10-1 
Justin Rose: 12-1
Bubba Watson: 15-1
Rickie Fowler: 25-1
Jimmy Walker: 30-1 

I love a longer shot here in somebody like Walker or Fowler. We'll look at where guys have come from to win in the end, but both of them are lurking in the top 15.

The current top 10

Points in parentheses.

1. Jordan Spieth (4,169 points)
2. Jason Day (2,459)
3. Bubba Watson (2,407)
4. Jimmy Walker (2,014)
5. Justin Rose (1,742)
6. Robert Streb (1,720)
7. Dustin Johnson (1,718)
8. Patrick Reed (1,593)
9. Rory McIlroy (1,567)
10. Danny Lee (1,561) 

A brief history

Here's a look at where each winner was ranked in points since 2007 when the event started.

Billy Horschel (2014): 69th
Henrik Stenson (2013): 9th
Brandt Snedeker (2012): 19th
Bill Haas (2011): 15th
Jim Furyk (2010): 3rd
Tiger Woods (2009): 1st
Vijay Singh (2008): 7th
Tiger Woods (2007): 1st

Four of the eight winners have won at least two tournaments over the four-tournament span. All but two won the Tour Championship, including the last five.

Is this really better than football?

I'll say this, it's much better than how the season used to end. The season used to go with a whimper as it was swallowed up by football in September and October. Now, at least you get to see a bunch of elite golfers vying for $10 million before football really gets cranking in mid-October. And if there's one thing that gets multimillionaire athletes more motivated, it's more millions. I say that sort of jokingly, but it really does get kind of fun.

Where is Tiger Woods?

Playing soccer with his kids and working out at his gym. Woods finished No. 178 in the FedEx Cup points race this year. Only the top 125 advance to the playoffs.

What changes are in place from last season?

There are two main ones. First, there will be a week off between the first two events and the last two. This is a good thing. A lot of golfers got totally worn down by playing four events in four weeks in 2014. The result was some shoddy golf once the Tour Championship came around.

The second is the reduction of points to the winner. As I outlined last year, you now get 2,000 points for winning instead of 2,500. That's a 4-to-1 ratio to points obtained in a regular PGA Tour event instead of 5-to-1 which helps out folks who have had a strong regular season.

My pick

I badly want to roll deep here and pick somebody like David Hearn (49th) or George McNeill (68th), but I'm going with McIlroy. He ranks 11th on all-time playoff earners and fourth among those who have never won the whole thing. He's the kind of guy who seems like he would want to lay the wood after Day and Spieth stole the show during the regular season.

And can you imagine the storylines between those three heading into the 2015-16 season?

The real prize is the $10 million. (USATSI)
The real prize is the $10 million. (USATSI)