Fact Pack: BMW Championship

• By Will Gray
• Sep 4, 2012 4:00 PM ET

This week the FedEx Cup playoffs head to Crooked Stick outside Indianapolis, site of the 1991 PGA Championship and home (literally) to famed golf course architect Pete Dye. Players can expect to find a lengthy course with penal rough, but low scores are expected to dominate for the second consecutive week. Justin Rose defends the title he won last year at Cog Hill as 70 players vie for 30 spots in the Tour Championship in two weeks. With that in mind, here is a look inside the numbers to see which players may contend for the title and help your Golf Channel Fantasy Challenge team in the process:

• John Senden returns with some momentum to an event that was a highlight of his 2011 season. His runner-up finish to Justin Rose at last year's BMW Championship matched his best career result on Tour and was part of a playoff run that saw him move from 50th on the points list to 13th after the Tour Championship. This year, Senden heads to Crooked Stick with five top-20 finishes in his last seven starts, including a 12th-place showing in Boston.

• Bill Haas will need a solid week in Indiana to have a chance to defend both his Tour Championship and FedEx Cup titles in Atlanta. Currently 28th in the playoff standings, Haas has only one top-10 finish in his last 17 starts and has fallen to 85th on Tour in GIR percentage for 2012 - a category in which he ranked 11th last season. No reigning FedEx Cup champion has ever made it back to the Tour Championship the following year.

• Kyle Stanley enters the BMW Championship firmly on the bubble, currently 30th on the points list, and like Haas he has struggled to play well recently. A winner earlier this year in Phoenix, Stanley has only two top-20 finishes in 21 stroke play events since that maiden victory. Currently ninth on Tour in driving distance, he will need to rely upon his length off the tee to help provide a timely good result.

• After missing four consecutive cuts earlier this summer, Kevin Stadler has rebounded quite nicely with T-10 finishes in each of the first two playoff events. Stadler entered the playoffs 70th on the points list but has now risen to 32nd with a great shot at making it to East Lake later this month. His solid all-around game is now paying dividends, as Stadler ranks 13th on Tour in total driving and 22nd in GIR percentage.

• Charley Hoffman's turbulent final round in Boston nearly cost him a spot in the field this week, but with a final par putt on the 18th he managed to hold on by a single stroke. His T-26 finish, though, was his first made cut since withdrawing from the John Deere Classic in July with a back injury. Having made the BMW field every year since the playoffs began in 2007, Hoffman will need to crack the top 20 for the first time in this event to have any chance at advancing to the Tour Championship.

• Bryce Molder made the biggest jump in the standings last week, moving from 93rd to 45th on the points list. Molder's ninth-place finish in Boston was his first top-10 result since the season-opening Hyundai TOC in Hawaii, and provided his biggest paycheck of 2012. The short game continues to be a strength for him this year, as the Georgia Tech alum ranks eighth on Tour in both scrambling and strokes gained putting.

• Rickie Fowler heads to Crooked Stick looking to cope with the disappointment of being left off this year's U.S. Ryder Cup squad. Fowler seemed likely to make the team after his win at Quail Hollow in May, but since the Memorial he has a stroke average of 72.5 and has shot 75 or higher six times in his last 23 competitive rounds, including a 76 Monday at TPC Boston.