BlogThe Barclays Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

It’s the homestretch of the 2015 PGA Tour season.  After 43 events spread over the last 11 months, for many their season is over.  Guys like Tiger Woods, Martin Kaymer, Geoff Ogilvy, Graeme McDowell, Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera to name a few

Here is a list of the top-50 from last year’s FedEx cup list that have fallen from grace, going from FedEx glory last year to out of the playoffs this year:

Player                              Last year position          This year’s standings

• Martin Kaymer                          16th                                   139th
• Geoff Oglivy                               29th                                   154th
• Stuart Appleby                           31st                201st Had surgery in February
• Seung-Yul Noh                           35th                                   134th
• Kevin Stadler                              38th                226th wrist injury most of the year
• Ernie Els                                      41st                                    173rd
• Angel Cabrera                             50th                                   180th

On the other end of the spectrum, for 125 players they can enjoy some added glory along with putting a few more dollars in their pockets through the FedEx Cup bonus pool.

Of course, the PGA Tour will talk about how much everyone has a chance this week.  The reality of this is for players who are 100 in the rankings like Hudson Swafford to Jeff Overton, who is in the 125th position, they have to run the table and win at least once and be in the top-five just to make it into the Tour Championship.  Still the points are more in their favor than the first couple of years when the rankings favored the leader.

Just look at this chart of past winners of the FedEx Cup standings, and you can see that Billy Horschel last year is the highest ranked player at the start of the playoffs that won it.

Year – FedEx winner        position going into playoffs

2014 – Billy Horschel                       69th

2013 – Henrik Stenson                     9th

2012 – Brandt Snedeker                  19th

2011 – Bill Haas                                 15th

2010 – Jim Furyk                              3rd

2009 – Tiger Woods                         1st

2008 – Vijay Singh                           7th

2007 – Tiger Woods                         1st

So the reality is that you have to be in the top-69 to win this race.  For more on the scenarios of what could happen, the PGA Tour has done a great chart to help those figure it out.

One thing for sure, the PGA Tour has the format down to a fair system and we will have a great four weeks of golf.

Now this is the PGA Tour’s take on this, I have a different opinion on all of this.

My take on the playoffs:

When FedEx Cup Playoffs were introduced in 2007, the PGA Tour had a big problem.  The season was very long, going from January through November.  After the PGA Championship, the marquee names didn’t play much until the last event in November at the Tour Championship.  The big problem PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem had, with new TV contracts he wasn’t going to get a network to do the telecasts in September, October and November, nobody wanted to buck Football.  He also had to spice up the way people look at a year for the Networks, he needed something more than player of the year and the money race.

So Finchem was looking for some way of cutting the season down so that he could put a proper period on the season before Football started.  NASCAR had a point system which got racers to a playoff system, and Finchem got FedEx to buy into the system.  It was a year long point system that players qualified for a series of four playoff events, with the top-30 going to the Tour Championship so that the “best player” of the year would be found.  Before it was the player who won the most money, Finchem just about scraped the money race and came up with a point system.

The only problem was that the PGA Tour sold this as a year-long system in which it would be just as important getting points in the first event as the last event.

Frankly in my eyes it has turned into a joke.  How can you justify players getting “valuable” FedEx Cup points in events like the Frys.com Open or the RBC Heritage or the Travelers.  Frankly it’s not important for week in, week out events.  In a way watching a players points grow was like watching grass grow, nobody including players really care during the year.

So how do you make it exciting, year round?  Right now the playoffs are four weeks in which the hottest player is usually the winner.  So let’s not make it a four-week affair.  What if instead of having four playoff events, you have a playoff event every ten weeks or so.  So after the 13 Fall and west coast events, you add up the points and have your first playoff event with between 70 and 90 players.  You then award points based on the finishes of that event.  After that playoff event, the next event rolls over to everyone with zero points and you go ten weeks or so to like Zurich in New Orleans.  Again the top point getters are in the second playoff event, with points award in that playoff event.  You then have another playoff event between the U.S. Open and British Open like at Greenbrier.  Again after the third playoff event, again everything is zero out and you go to six or seven events before you have the fourth playoff event the week before the Tour Championship.  Again points are given at this fourth playoff event, and you take all four of the playoff events, total up the points and invite the top-30 to play in your final playoff at the Tour Championship.  So instead of four straight weeks of playoffs, you stagger them over the course of the year and end it with the fourth playoff event followed by the Tour Championship.

Under this system you will see players think more about the playoff events and you will see players in more events in the week or two before a playoff.  This then places importance on the whole year.  You will probably get the same hot golfer winning at the Tour Championship, but things will be more interesting.  I have touched on the surface on this.

I love this concept, and it makes each event during the year more important in getting points.

Just my take on these very boring playoff events.

Tournament information:

This is the 49th annual Barclays. Originally dubbed the Westchester Classic, the tournament has undergone a slew of name changes over the years. Just a decade after Jack Nicklaus captured the inaugural tournament in thrilling fashion back in 1967, the tournament became the American Express Westchester Classic.

Three years later, in 1979, American Express pulled out as title sponsor and the event became known as the Manufacturers Hanover Westchester Classic. The name lasted until 1990, when Buick became the title sponsor. In 2005, Barclays took over as chief sponsor of the event.

The Barclays, usually played the week before or after the U.S. Open in June, was shifted to the middle of August to accommodate being the first event in the FedEx Cup playoffs.

The first year of the playoffs,  Westchester was used and Steve Stricker won.  Since then the Barclays has moved away from Westchester, and it looks like it will never go back. Lot’s of reasons for it not ever coming back, but most of them were because of the logistics and not because of the course itself.  The future of the Barclays is courses like Ridgewood, Plainfield, Liberty National and now Bethpage, which held the 2012 Barclays and be the home next year.  Last year it was played at Ridgewood Country Club for the third time.  Future plans has two new courses joining the rota, Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury, New York in 2017 and Ferry Point in 2020.

Course information:

• The players raved last year about Ridgewood, an A.W. Tillinghast design from the 1920s, and they will also likely be quite pleased with Plainfield, a Donald Ross design from the same era. The course is 7,125 yards with a par of 72 from the back tees, but the official yardage and par for The Barclays will be a 70 and play at 7,012 yards.  It was the site of the 2011 Barclays, unfortunately Hurrican Irene came up the coast that year and the event was shortened to 54 holes. The course has a 75.3 rating and a 146 slope.
• Ross designed Plainfield in 1916 and it opened in 1921.  It joins Sedgefield C.C., Aronimink Club, Pinehurst and East Lake G.C. as other Ross courses that have held a PGA Tour event in the last five years. The layout is routed over rolling terrain and features challenging greens that have a lot of rolls and shelves. Plainfield hosted the 1978 U.S. Amateur, won by John Cook, and the 1987 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Laura Davies. Over the past 15 years, Plainfield Country Club has undergone an extensive restoration program under the direction of architect Gil Hanse, involving the removal of over 2,000 trees and the rediscovery of a number of lost bunkers that were covered over the years. The restoration included expansion of 16 greens and the lengthening of 12 tees to reflect modern equipment and skill, as well as the restoration of bunker complexes on No. 4 and No. 15.
• The course will be very short under PGA Tour standards as all par fives are reachable and there are four very short par 4s under 400 yards.  The have made changes to the 18th, adding 95 yards compared to what it was in 2011, still the course will play a bit tougher since the 5th hole has been changed from a par 5 in 2011 to a par 4 this year.
• In 2011 when the Barclays was played on it, the course played to a 68.803 average (was a par 71 then) and was the 6th easiest course of the year.  The hardest hole was the 8th playing to a 4.137 average.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at Plainfield:

Plainfield Country Club, site of this week’s Barclays  is one of those storied old gems that will have the best players in the world match up on it.  Plainfield was tough before, but in the last couple of years Gil Hanse has done some renovations on the Ross course to make it tougher.  The course is one in which you can’t overpower, in a way hitting it too far is a obstacle on this layout.  The course is one of those northeastern type with tree-lined fairways, if that isn’t enough the rough will be difficult and give players fits.

Key stat for the winner:

• The Barclay’s has always been a test of survival and maybe that’s why in the 48-year history of the event it’s 41 champions have won 64 majors.
• Players who have fared well at the other venues of the Barclays should find success here, too. Also look for those who have played well on other traditional, old courses like Riviera, Aronimink (a Ross course used for the AT&T National in 2010 and 2011), Colonial, Westchester, and in the U.S. Open. While the set-up will not be like an Open, Plainfield still promises to be challenging, so look for players who do well on hard courses to do well here.
• Hitting greens in regulation will be paramount. The tight venue will require good ball control, which will result in hitting lots of greens. Look for the winner to hit a plethora of greens in regulation this week, that was the way Dustin Johnson won at Plainfield in 2011 (45 of 54, rank T-9th).
• One of the big hazards of missing fairways and greens are the bunkering at Ridgewood.  There are 78 of them, and they aren’t the ones that pros are use to, flat, easy to get out of kind.  These are very steep banked, even in the fairway and take the best of bunker players to maneuver through.  Players are used to hitting into bunkers and having an easy up and down, that won’t happen this week.
• Putting will be an important skill on greens that have a lot of slopes and should be fast. The greens also have a lot of shelves, so it will also be important to control iron shots well enough to not leave yourself a lot of long putts.

Is there any rhyme or reason for a player to win this week?

• Wisdom says that a player with a lot of experiences will win but since this course is not a well know entity a newcomer could do well.
• Players ranking between about 90th and 125th have extra incentive because they need a good showing to stay alive in the lucrative FedExCup, with the top 100 moving on the following week’s Deutsche Bank Championship. In 2009, Heath Slocum barely made the field at The Barclays but his victory helped him to ultimately finish eighth in the FedExCup. In 2013, Martin Laird was 95th heading into the week and lost in a playoff, eventually finishing 11th in the FedExCup. Last year we saw Billy Horschel begin the FedEx Cup playoffs ranked 69th and go on to win it.  So anything is possible.
• This week is a mix of tour stars like Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Justin Rose, Bubba Watson and Jim Furyk with a lot of first-time winners and a lot of non-winners.  In past years winning had a lot to do with the weather, when it’s good the tour stars seem to shine but in bad weather it becomes a long shot delight.  Also in past Barclays look for those who play well with the lead, 25 of the 45 winners since 1970 have held the lead going into the final round and went on to win.  Since 1989, 15 of those 2265 third round leaders have won but since leaving Westchester the third round leader has never won (2011 was reduce to 54 holes).
• Lastly, the outlook for the tournament couldn’t be any better as sunny skies with temperatures hovering in the high80s will be around all four days with no chance of rain.  But over the course of the last couple of weeks a lot of rain has fallen on Plainfield, which will make the course play very softly.   So look for those that hit it long to have an advantage plus those that scramble.