NORTON, Mass. — No longer No. 1 in the world, Justin Thomas at least is No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings.

Nei­ther is rel­e­vant as the PGA Tour goes into its lucra­tive post­sea­son, and Thomas need only to review his­to­ry — whether it’s last year or the last decade — to appre­ci­ate that.

Noth­ing illus­trates the depth and par­i­ty in golf more than the fact that Thomas is the eighth play­er in the last eight years to start the FedEx Cup play­offs as the No. 1 seed. He was pre­ced­ed by Brooks Koep­ka, Dustin John­son, Hide­ki Mat­suya­ma, Jason Day, Jor­dan Spi­eth, Rory McIl­roy and Tiger Woods.

Only one of them — Spi­eth in 2015 — went on to cap­ture the cup and its eight-fig­ure bonus.

Spi­eth missed the cut in con­sec­u­tive weeks, fin­ished 11 shots behind in the third event and then — stop if you’ve heard this one before — he made putts from all over East Lake to win the Tour Championship.

It’s even more dif­fi­cult now because of a restruc­tured finale that fea­tures a stag­gered start. The No. 1 seed going into East Lake is at 10 under with a two-shot lead before hit­ting a shot, all the way down to the last of the 30 qual­i­fiers at even par.

Thomas was the top seed a year ago and was spot­ted a two-shot lead. Even though it was his worst scor­ing per­for­mance of the post­sea­son, he wasn’t seri­ous­ly out of con­tention until the final day. McIl­roy wound up win­ning the $15 mil­lion prize.

Thomas said it felt weird to be lead­ing before he start­ed. He’d still rather be in that spot than hav­ing to make up ground, and that means play­ing well over the next two weeks in The North­ern Trust out­side Boston and the BMW Cham­pi­onship out­side Chicago.

“I felt like if I put myself in that posi­tion again, I’ll han­dle it a lot bet­ter,” Thomas said Tuesday.

Then again, noth­ing about this year feels similar.

Points are worth triple, not quadru­ple, because the PGA Tour lost 13 events to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. That means less volatil­i­ty — only 19 play­ers have a math­e­mat­i­cal chance of tak­ing over the No. 1 seed this week at The North­ern Trust, com­pared with 72 play­ers had this event been worth four times as many points.

And then there’s the tricky part of get­ting the game to peak at just the right time.

Play­ers typ­i­cal­ly would love for that to hap­pen four times a year in the majors — three times this year with the British Open being can­celed — and it has worked for the likes of Bil­ly Horschel in 2014. He remains the only FedEx Cup cham­pi­on to start the post­sea­son out­side the top 50. He was at No. 69 and was run­ner-up and won twice in a three-week stretch.

“You’re try­ing to get ready for one week in a major,” Thomas said. “Where­as here, I’m not try­ing to peak this week. I’m try­ing to kind of start the upward climb to hope­ful­ly be peak­ing come … Sat­ur­day, Sun­day, Mon­day in Atlanta.”

It all leads to Atlanta, and it’s ulti­mate­ly about cash.

Pres­tige requires time, and 13 years of the FedEx Cup isn’t enough. What will help move it along is the influx of youth that don’t know any­thing different.

Thomas was only 14 when the FedEx Cup began in 2007.

Jon Rahm, who returned to No. 1 in the world, was a 12-year-old in Spain when Woods won the first FedEx Cup.

“I remem­ber the whole thing. I know I remem­ber know­ing what they were play­ing for,” Rahm said. “Luck­i­ly, I’ve been able to make a lot of income for some­body my age. But I’ve nev­er played golf for mon­ey. I played it for the enjoy­ment and the win­ning and try­ing to be the best. That’s what the FedEx Cup is — when you play good when you need to, right?”

For play­ers like Koep­ka, Spi­eth and British Open cham­pi­on Shane Lowry, they need to play well imme­di­ate­ly. Koep­ka is at No. 97, Spi­eth is at No. 100 and No. 122 Lowry, who only qual­i­fied for the post­sea­son last week, have to move up to the top 70 to advance to the BMW Cham­pi­onship next week.

Then again, this might not be the worst time to make an ear­ly exit. Because the biggest dif­fer­ence to this post­sea­son is that it doesn’t feel like the sea­son is end­ing at all.

The U.S. Open is two week after the Tour Cham­pi­onship. Still to come is the Mas­ters in November.

The end of the road can feel like the start.

“Usu­al­ly right after the Tour Cham­pi­onship, at least for me, I’m look­ing for a release, whether it’s a vaca­tion or just put the clubs in my garage. I need to have some fun. I need to just relax,” Thomas said. “That’s not the case this year.”

Strange year. But it still pays well.