WORLD No.1 Jordan Spieth's stellar year would be capped with victory in the multi-million dollar FedEx Cup but he admits his main focus is ensuring he stays ahead of Rory McIlroy.
The 22-year-old American won the first two majors of the year, contended in the other two, and has recorded two other victories.
That puts him well ahead of the field as the season enters its final four events, which culminate with the Tour Championship at East Lake with a $10m (£6.45m) prize on offer to the eventual champion.
He has emerged as the true challenger to McIlroy, who has four majors to his name, and proved that by overtaking the Northern Irishman as world number one after the US PGA Championship.
Spieth has every intention of keeping McIlroy at bay and he knows the only way to do that is to keep on winning.
"The only way I think about going about it is just focusing on this week," Spieth said ahead of The Barclays at Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey.
"If you win each week you're going to stay number one and in my mind the goal is to approach each tournament to try to win and then try and keep this position for hopefully years.
"But again, it can change in two weeks' time, so I'm aware of that. And that bit of fear on the back end of it is enough to get me going and to keep working hard."
After making his major breakthrough this year, the season-ending finale, where money appears to be the greatest motivator, may seem something of an anti-climax for Spieth.
He admits it was not on his list of priorities and cannot possibly compare to the sport's premier events but that does not mean he is not taking it seriously.
"I put winning the FedExCup below a major championship. I don't think anybody holds it to the same level," he added.
"I don't know exactly where I put it. It's something that obviously everybody wants to win, there's no doubt about it, and it's something I'd love to win some day.
"The names on that trophy are no fluke and so it's something that hopefully I get a lot of chances at. This will be my third chance."
Golf's newest major winner Jason Day, who triumphed at Whistling Straits a fortnight ago, withdrew from the pre-tournament pro-am as a precaution to rest a back problem.
"Jason tweaked his back moving an item under his motor coach last night," said Cornel Driessen, Day's physiotherapist and trainer.
Day is second in the FedEx Cup standings and tees off with Spieth and Bubba Watson.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here