BMW Championship 2016: Players to Watch, Early Predictions and Course Breakdown

Defending champion and world No. 1 Jason Day heads a stellar field including an in-form Rory McIlroy as the battle for the FedEx Cup heads to Crooked Stick, Indiana for the BMW Championship on Thursday. 

The BMW is the penultimate event of the play-offs and is restricted to the top-70 players in the FedEx standings. However, the field is reduced to 69 this year as Open champion Henrik Stenson sits it out with a knee injury, as reported by Alex Myers of Golf Digest.

After Crooked Stick, the top 30 players will go on to qualify for the season-ending Tour championship at East Lake and contest a $10 million top prize.

With much to play for over the next four days, we take a look at some of the likely contenders for the BMW Championship.

Players to watch

Rory McIlroy

McIlroy is fresh from tasting his first victory on the PGA tour for 16 months at the Deutsche Bank Championship in TPC Boston, which ended on Monday. He has been paired in an eye-catching group for the opening rounds, per the Golf Channel:

Marquee Group: Rory will play the first two rounds of the BMW alongside Spieth and Scott: https://t.co/nEdjPfu0nH pic.twitter.com/AWv0ttWMdz

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 7, 2016

The positive parallels to 2012 are there for the Northern Ireland star, who prior to winning the BMW Championship four years ago when it was last played at Crooked Stick, had also won the TPC.

Back then, McIlroy triumphed by two shots over Phil Mickelson, and his tentative putting problems that saw him seek out extra coaching after the U.S. PGA now look to be in the past.

As reported by Jonathan Wall of PGATour.com, McIlroy’s success was down to switching to a new mallet putter, …

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