Wednesday, 13 September 2017: Marc Leishman has set his sights on earning a top-five seeding for golf's Tour Championship in Atlanta, but he'll need a hot finish at the BMW Championship.

Australian golfer Marc Leishman is determined to book his place in the all-important top-five seedings for the season-ending Tour Championship with a strong result at this week's BMW event in Chicago.

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The second-last event of the US PGA Tour's $US67 million ($A84 million) FedEx Cup playoffs will determine the 30 players advancing next week to Atlanta.

Leishman says the opportunity to enter the finale as one of the top-five seeds, who automatically win the FedEx Cup's $US10 million ($A12 million) bonus prize with a victory at East Lake Golf Club, makes it easy to forget his heartbreak in Boston.

"That's my number one goal this week; it'd be fantastic to go to Atlanta knowing the FedEx Cup is mine with a win. It would just cap off probably my best season on Tour," Leishman told AAP.

At the Dell Technologies Championship two weeks ago at TPC Boston, the 33-year-old Leishman started the back nine on Sunday with a two-shot lead but five bogeys handed the title to world No.4 Justin Thomas.

"I played really well in Boston, except for a disappointing back nine," said Leishman.

"I took it to the best players in the world and they threw everything at me.

"I didn't come out on top but it was good to know that, if I'm playing well, and they're playing well, I'm good enough to beat them."

However, a third-placed result rocketed Leishman up to seventh on the FedEx Standings and the Victorian is confident of edging into the top five.

With 2084 points, he enters the BMW Championship 800 points behind fifth-placed Jon Rahm and will likely need a second-placed finish at Conway Farms to knock one player out of a group containing big guns Jordan Spieth, Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama and Rahm.

Leishman has been the form Australian on tour this season, bagging a win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March among six top 10s and 14 top-25 results.

World No.23 Leishman has not made it to the Tour Championship since 2009, when he also tied runner-up at the BMW Championship.

Of the other Australians in the 70-man BMW Championship field, world No.9 Jason Day sits 28th on the FedEx standings while fellow Queenslander Cameron Smith is 56th.