JASON DUFNER SITS OUT START OF US PLAY-OFFS

FROM THE CBS SPORTS.COM WEBSITE

Sitting at No. 2 behind FedEx Cup points leader Tiger Woods, Jason Dufner is skipping this week's US PGA Tour playoffs opener at the Barclays, saying he will focus instead on resting up for next week's Deutsche Bank Championship.

"I've had a pretty heavy schedule since Firestone or so, and I'm looking forward to the second part of the playoffs," Dufner told PGATour.com last week. "I'm just not going to be able to do eight out of nine weeks with the Tour Championship and Ryder Cup at the end of it."

Making 17 of 19 cuts this year, the 35-year-old Cleveland native is on track to have a career season. Having wrapped up the Wyndham Championship on Sunday tied for seventh, he has two wins, one second-place finish and eight top 10s on tour in 2012.

A win at Sedgefield would have pushed Dufner past Woods and into the No. 1 seed as the PGA heads to Bethpage Black this weekend for the first of four FedEx Cup events.

While Dufner, who's 35, can afford to miss being among the top 125 players who qualified for the playoffs opener, he won't be as well positioned heading into the following events, culminating in the Tour Championship. Points during the playoff tournaments quintuple in value from the regular season, and each event sees an increasing number of players winnowed out by point totals until only 30 reach the series finale.