Say what you want about the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but the structure of the four-week conclusion allows for one storyline to be particularly fruitful: The rise of the underdogs.

With the points so weighted toward Playoff performance, any player, no matter how far back among the top 125, can capture a spot at East Lake.

With that in mind, we take a look at the most surprising golfers in this week’s Tour Championship field.

The aforementioned late risers are part of the equation, but the players who unexpectedly ruled the regular season (previously mediocre golfers who had elite 2014s) also factor in.

It remains to be seen whether any of these guys will challenge for the FedEx Cup Trophy, but just making it to East Lake is a win.

Without further ado, your Cinderellas in Atlanta (current ranking in parentheses):

Jimmy Walker (6)

Remember when this guy was being named in the company of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and David Duval? OK, maybe it was just a single statistic, but it was an impressive one.

The 35-year-old won three times in his first eight events of the season (as the aforementioned stat shows), giving him a healthy lead in the FedEx Cup standings—one that he didn’t relinquish until the PGA Championship.

To be fair, there had certainly been signs that Walker was in for a breakout year. Plenty predicted it. Others rightfully mentioned that he was one of the best players on Tour without a victory. And he was only six spots short of East Lake in 2013 anyway.

But talk and actual performance are different. The facts were that Walker had never made it to East Lake, and even though he was apparently ascending, perception doesn’t always equal reality.

So in the end it’s still a bit of a surprise that Walker made it here. And even with the positive season previews, nobody expected the year Walker has actually put out. 

Cameron Tringale (19)

Nobody is doubting this kid’s talent. Actually, of late, people are going out of the way to prop up Tringale’s credentials.

That talent though had not manifested itself much in previous seasons, as the American had nine top-10s total from 2011 to 2013. Only once in those three campaigns did he even reach the third leg of the Playoffs, let alone East Lake.

Truth be told, that talent—as it pertains to on-course results—is really no less apparent in 2014. His three top-10s and eight top-25s are very standard to his previous performance. But one of those finishes was a T2, the highest showing in his PGA Tour career, and he produced it at the exact right time.

Tringale entered the Playoffs 61st in the standings, better than his usual but a longshot for East Lake. And then he opened the Barclays 66-68 on his way to a T2, moving him more than 40 spots in the standings into the top-20.

The result was not exactly out of nowhere, but his recent showings hadn’t been great and he had never produced a finish even close to that high in a Barclays-quality field.

All in all, mediocre regular seasons of the past and zero history of playoff juice stamp Tringale as a surprise character in the 2014 Tour Championship proceedings.

Morgan Hoffmann (21)

Now this is a story.

Three weeks ago, Hoffmann was fighting to keep his Tour card, sweating it out after he missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship to see if he made it among the Top 125.

He just squeaked in, beginning the Playoffs in the 124 position, but it didn’t appear he would last long.

Opening rounds of 70 at the Barclays seemed to confirm that. And then Hoffmann finished 66-69 to place T9 and vault to 72nd in the standings.

OK, good on him, but even if he produced the minimal result he needed to get to Cherry Hills, that’s where his season would end. Accordingly, Hoffmann only moved up to 68th after the Deutsche Bank, and fired consecutive 72s in the first two rounds of the BMW Championship.

His East Lake dreams were officially dead. And then Hoffman went crazy.

The 25-year-old battered Cherry Hills on the weekend with 17 birdies and one eagle on his way to a scorching 62-63 conclusion. That netted him a T3, the highest finish of his career, and enough to vault him into the Tour Championship.

From a potential slot in the Web.com Tour Finals to East Lake bound in three weeks. Insane. Of course Heath Slocum did the same from 124th in 2009, but his was by way of winning the Barclays. Hoffmann became the first player to advance from the outside in every event.

To be clear, Hoffmann has plenty of talent (just ask Jim Nantz, who gushed over him at last year’s Farmers Insurance Open, and then weirdly couldn’t remember his name just months later). But from a 124 start, I’d say that this is a pretty improbable run.

Ryan Palmer (23)

Not Arnold Palmer’s grandson has a better career than you might think.

This is his 11th consecutive full season on the PGA Tour. Only twice has in that span has he failed to crack the top 125, and even then he retained his card by year’s end. Palmer also boasts three PGA Tour wins on his resume.

He’s even made it to East Lake before. But it was all the way back in 2010, and appeared to be a fluke because he had not come particularly close in any other year.

That was, until 2014.

Palmer produced possibly the best regular season of his career, staking six top-10 finishes that included two runner-ups into a 30th place seat heading into the Playoffs.

But Palmer struggled in the first two events and was 37th ahead of the BMW Championship. In spite of his waning performance, Palmer dug deep at Cherry Hills and came out with a fulfilling T4. That result moved him to 23rd and packing his bags for Atlanta.

The 28-year-old’s appearance at East Lake isn’t totally out of nowhere. But combine his lukewarm year-to-year performance and his spot easily outside the top 30 before Cherry Hills, and it’s definitely a little unexpected to see Palmer in the finale.

Geoff Ogilvy (25)

Not the best of times in recent years for this Aussie, and things didn’t appear to be turning around in 2014. But lately he’s come on strong.

Ogilvy won his first Tour event in four years in August and went from potentially losing his Tour card to firmly in the Playoffs.

He was still a mere 90th in the standings though heading in, and plopped down to 100th after a poor showing at the Barclays.

The 37-year-old’s odds of sticking around through the finale appeared pretty slim.

Without any warning, Ogilvy proceeded to shoot 65-65 over the final 36 at the Deutsche Bank Championship and nearly won the event before placing T2. The lack of victory didn’t mean a dearth of points, as Ogilvy rocketed all the way to 24th in the standings.

A mediocre week at Cherry Hills was enough to hold him among the Top 30.

Brendon Todd (27)

And the most out of the blue season goes to…Brendan Todd. No question.

While the former Georgia Bulldog was not lacking in national accolades in college, his professional performance prior to 2014 had been replacement-level, AT BEST.

Todd turned pro in 2007 but could barely make it to the Tour in the ensuing half-decade. And even when he did, his two full seasons (2009 and 2012) were a disaster. He finished 181st and 146th, respectively, in those years and laid claim to a single top-10 combined in the 50 events he played.

In a partial 10-event 2013 season, the results were better as he was 145th in the standings on a restricted schedule, but nothing portended an impending breakout.

Then he started out 2014 making his first 10 cuts, won the Byron Nelson in May and tacked on four more top-10 finishes thereafter to bring his season total to seven.

Yep, the guy who had never threatened to qualify for the Playoffs actually started the fall series virtually a lock to make it to East Lake. Todd parlayed his extraordinarily unlikely season-long emergence into a 12th-place standing in the FedEx Cup rankings.

A lackluster Playoffs thus far has demoted him to 27th, but he is at East Lake regardless. And that’s an incredible feat. Brendon Todd has pulled off a legitimately elite season following years of extremely poor play.