Jason Day has drawn the marquee pairing for the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the game’s newest Major champion, joining Jordan Spieth and Bubba Watson for the first two rounds of The Barclays this week.

Tee times have been allotted according to where players finished the season on the points table and Day’s PGA victory pushed him to number two between Spieth (one) and Watson (three).

With World Number 2 Rory McIlroy electing not to play at Plainfield CC in New Jersey, Spieth and Day will bear the brunt of attention as the game’s new world order begins to take shape.

While Day will rightly be one of the favourites to take out the lucrative $10 million payday, five other Australians join him this week hoping to advance to the final event in Atlanta in a month’s time.

Only the top -100 of this week’s 125 strong starting line-up advance to next week’s Deutsche Bank in Boston, 70 of those making it to the MW Championship in Chicago and only the top-30 earning a spot at the final event, the TOUR Championship at Eastlake GC in Atlanta.

Steven Bowditch is the next best of the Australians behind Day at 22 in the standings and will play the first two rounds with Hideki Matsuyama and David Lingmerth.

Bowditch has an excellent chance to make it all the way to East Lake for the first time in his career after a breakout season which saw him claim his second TOUR title.

Long considered one of Australia’s most talented players, Bowditch has found a level of consistency in 2015 which had been previously lacking in his game and his results have trended upward all year, an encouraging sign heading to a gruelling stretch of golf.

A long hitter who has at times been streaky with the putter, Bowditch is capable of shooting low numbers and if his game catches fire at any point over the next four weeks he could legitimately challenge for the ultimate prize.

Marc Leishman is Australia’s next highest on the points table at 50 and will play with Phil Mickelson and Canada’s David Hearn.

A year that started on a low note for Leishman with the near fatal illness of wife Audrey has ended with some mixed results, the most notable his play-off loss at the Open at St Andrews in July.

The Victorian has shown a knack for producing his best golf at the biggest tournaments and having only one victory on his PGA TOUR resume belies a game capable of much more.

Like Bowditch, Leishman has never advanced to the final event at East Lake and while a big hill for him to climb this year certainly not beyond him.

While he has traditionally struggled at the Barclays his best career result came at this year’s venue, Plainfield CC, when the tournament was last played here in 2011.

Coming off a disappointing missed cut at Whistling Straits where he was hampered by a back problem in the first round Leishman will be motivated to play well over the next four weeks.

While likely to play at least three of the four will playoff tournaments, though, he will need to produce something close to his best to have a chance of making it to Atlanta and challenging for the $10 million first prize.

At 55 on the points table Matt Jones is the fourth Australian to make it to the play-offs and finds himself in a similar position to Leishman.

A berth at East Lake is not out of the question but he will need to produce something special to leap frog those ahead, a task not beyond him as he showed at Whistling Straits.

While disappointed with his finish at the PGA having held the 36-hole lead Jones will take a lot of positives from that performance and can put the lessons learned to good use immediately.

Like Steven Bowditch, Jones has matured greatly as a player the past two seasons and while he hasn’t yet backed up last year’s maiden TOUR win he has given himself legitimate chances with two third place finishes in 2015.

His record at the Barclays is less than stellar with two missed cuts and a best of T33 in 2013 but he has never played the tournament at this week’s venue so comes into the week with no negative thoughts from prior performance.

John Senden is the fifth Australian to make the play-offs having finished 88th in the final standings in a 2015 of mixed results.

The Queensland veteran began the year somewhat indifferently but looked to have turned things around with back-to-back outstanding performances at the WGC Matchplay and The PLAYERS’ in March.

Despite the two top 10’s in strong fields, however, Senden went off the boil again and his best result in seven events since has been a T14 at the US Open in June.

He comes to this week off consecutive missed cuts at the Quicken Loans tournament and PGA Championship and needs to turn things around quickly if he is to advance to next week.

The final Australian in this week’s field is, surprisingly, Adam Scott. It would be fair to describe 2015 as a disappointing season for the former World Number 1, his final ranking of 94 on the FedEx Cup a testament to that.

A delayed start to the season after the birth of daughter Bo in February seemed to disrupt the Queenslander’s rhythm for the entire year, Scott never finding any consistent form in a very limited schedule.

A T4 at his first event of the season, the WGC at Doral, promised much but was followed immediately by his first missed cut in three years at the following week’s Valspar tournament.

He went on to miss two more cuts for the season, the first time since 2011 he had failed to make the weekend more than once in a season.

However, as disappointing as his 2015 has been, Scott has the opportunity to turn it all around with four good weeks of golf and there is no question he has the ability to do it.

His record speaks for itself, Scott is a vastly superior player to his final ranking position and better credentialed than many above him on the list.

While he might be the lowest ranked of the Australians at the start of these playoffs it would be no surprise to see Scott make it all the way to East Lake and even contend for the $10 million prize.