As the third event of the FedEx Cup playoffs gets underway in Indiana this week there is just one goal for Australia’s two standout players of 2016: maintain their place in the top-5 of the standings.

When the fourth and final event gets underway next week at the TOUR Championship in Atlanta, the players holding the top-5 positions have a huge advantage over the rest of the 30-man field.

The equation for those players is simple: win at East Lake and you win the FedEx Cup.

Day currently holds second spot behind Patrick Reed while Scott was pushed from fourth to fifth last week by Rory McIlroy’s charging Deutsche Bank victory.

Both tee up at Crooked Stick in Indiana this week knowing that no Australian has won the FedEx Cup in its 10-year history and both will be keen to grab that piece of history for themselves.

Scott has a slight advantage this week having played the course when it hosted this tournament in 2012 though there have been several significant changes to the layout since.

The 2013 Masters champion finished in a share of sixth that week on a course softened by heavy rain, a scenario which could potentially play out again this week.

With a pair of top-5 finishes in the first two playoff events, including a charging Sunday finish last week, Scott is among the favourites this week.

He leads both the strokes gained tee to green and strokes gained approach the green categories and if he can find some magic with the putter will be a genuine threat this week.

Day, too, is impressive statistically and while at less than his best in Boston last week still managed a top-20 finish.

That result was a continuation of the sort of determination which has seen the Queenslander not only climb to the World Number 1 ranking but also clearly hold the mantle as the best player in the game in 2016.

Day is number one in strokes gained putting for the year and number one in total strokes gained, a formidable combination which will rightly place him among the favourites this week.

Day and Scott are joined in Indiana this week by Marc Leishman and Aaron Baddeley, both needing something special to qualify for the TOUR Championship in two weeks’ time.

Baddeley slipped to 67^th in the standings after the Deutsche Bank while Leishman took the 70^th and final spot in this week’s field by shooting an impressive Sunday 67 in Boston.

Both will need to a top three finish this week to advance to Atlanta.

For Baddeley, 2016 has been an astonishing year after he began the season without full exempt status for the first time in 13 years.

The two-time Australian Open winner rededicated himself to the game and added a fourth PGA TOUR victory to his resume to ensure playing privileges for at least the next two years.

To have made it to the third of the playoff events is a remarkable achievement under the circumstances and if this proves his last event of the season it has been an undeniably successful one.

Marc Leishman, meanwhile, will likely have mixed feelings about a 2016 which has been far from poor but never seemed to live up to its potential.

The laidback Victorian has appeared to be on the verge of doing something special all year without quite getting there though his Sunday play at TPC Boston to make this week’s field might be the turning point.

In his rookie season of 2009 Leishman produced a T2 finish at the BMW Championship to push his way into the TOUR Championship and while that result came at a different golf course it’s not beyond the Victorian to do the same again at Crooked Stick.