PGA star---Steve Stricker

Steve Stricker, the United States golf player, who can be regarded as the best player since the PGA Tour playoff system began two years ago.

Yes, even better than Woods and Vijay Singh, who have won the first two FedEx Cups. That may be next for Strick after he birdied the last two holes at the TPC of Boston to beat Jason Dufner and Scott Verplank by one stroke in the Deutsche Bank Championship.

It was his third victory of the season, the seventh of his PGA Tour career and his second in the playoffs. He won the first-ever playoff event, the 2007 Barclays, en route to finishing second behind Woods in the final standings, has finished in the top 10 six times in 10 playoff events and has never been out of the top 25. He is 86-under-par in the playoffs, seven strokes better thanTiger Woods.

Stricker will be looking to pad his lead in the standings this week in the BMW Championship, in which he tied for 10th last year at Bellerive after finishing third the year before at Cog Hill. The University of Illinois grad will be the local favorite this week on the Dubsdread Course, where he will be playing for the 16th consecutive year, having won the tournament by eight strokes in 1994.

Stricker was tied for the first-round lead last week with a flawless 63 and bounced back from a 72 in round two by closing 65-67. He hit in the neighborhood of 70% of the fairways and greens before turning to his reliable putter, averaging 26.5 putts per round.

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