NORTON, Mass. -- The joke on the driving range at TPC Boston on Tuesday concerned the new week-to-week volatility in the FedEx Cup playoffs. Scuttlebutt said that a player could advance all the way to the 30-man Tour Championship and still fail to finish in the top 125 on the money list, thus losing his Tour card.

But is that actually true?

Lee Janzen is the low man on the money list (149th) among those in the field at the Deutsche Bank this week. He barely made it into the field at last week's Barclays, the first stop in the four-week playoff series, and then made the cut to get to 119th in FedEx Cup points. Again, that was barely enough to make it into the 120-man field at the Deutsche Bank, which starts Friday.

According to Kevin Sutherland, who was hitting balls on the range Tuesday after losing a three-man playoff with Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh at the Barclays, the two-time U.S. Open champion Janzen was making light of his situation. He was apparently convinced that by doing just enough to get to 70th in FedEx points after this week (the top 70 make the BMW the next week in St. Louis) and then doing just enough there to move to 30th (top 30 make the Tour Championship), he could get all the way to the Tour's ultimate event while remaining outside the top 125 on the money list.

Even if that math is right, which seems far-fetched, Rule 2-2 states that any player who ends the playoffs in the top 30 on the FedEx Cup points list shall keep his card the following year.

In other words, the Tour just saved Janzen from doing a whole lot of unnecessary calculation.