BlogThe Barclays Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

It’s the homestretch of the 2013 PGA Tour season.  After 33 weeks for many their season is over.  Guys like Seung-Yul Noh, Bud Cauley and Tom Gillis who had memorable season last year getting to the BMW Championship find themselves not only out of the playoffs, but having to play for their 2014 PGA Tour cards in the Web.Com playoffs.

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

Louis Oosthuizen                    7th              154th (hurt)

Vijay Singh                               33rd                                145th

Seung-Yul Noh                        37th                               160th

Bud Cauley                               38th                                132nd

Tom Gillis                               40th                                  152nd

Ben Curtis                                41st                                   153rd

Padraig Harrington             43rd                                   130th

Troy Matteson                       45th                                    167th

J.B. Homes                             48th                                  236th

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, the reality of this is for players who are 100 in the rankings like Jeff Overton to Ben Crane 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 Brandt Snedeker is the highest ranked player at the start of the playoffs that won it.

Year – FedEx winner                position going into playoffs

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-20 to win this race.  For many that is fair, you have to realize that Ben Crane had just as good of a chance as Tiger Woods had, so it’s not about the next four weeks.  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.

A look at Liberty National:

Located on the western shores of New York Harbor, just 1,000 yards from the Statue of Liberty, Liberty National, designed by Bob Cupp and Tom Kite, opened in 2006. Built at a cost of $250 million, it sits on a formerly contaminated site on the Jersey City waterfront with spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The course and high-end golf club which has an initiation fee of $450,000 to join, were developed by former Reebok CEO Paul Fireman and his son Dan. Three million cubic yards of earth were brought in during course construction because there could be no digging on the site and everything had to be built up. The resulting course is still relatively flat, with many holes having the feel of a Florida layout, with water hazards, and others of a links course, with fescue grasses. Its course rating and slope are among the highest in the New York metropolitan area.

The course will be totally different than previous Barclay’s courses, Westchester, Plainfield and Ridgewood because those venues were traditional courses with lot’s of mature trees on them.  Liberty National is more links style and could have wind play a part of the week since there is a lack of wind.  The greens aren’t that big at 6,300 square feet and there is 90 bunkers with 12 holes being effected by water.

The course was not very popular among many of the players when the Barclays was held on it in 2009.  Last year the course made some small design changes to 14 of the 18 holes to help ease some of the criticism.  The thought that between these tweaks and four additional years of maturity will make the course play better and get some good words from the players themselves. Weather will have a lot to do with things, if it gets too windy, which does happen in the late afternoon, it could produce some player complaints.

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

Key stat for the winner:

Liberty National is a unique style of golf course. The owners have put in 5000 trees, but they aren’t very mature and right now there are some holes which give it parkland feel but on the majority of the holes the course as a Scottish links feel.  Liberty National does feature undulating fairways well protected by bunkers, long wispy bluegrass rough in places and small greens with multiple run off areas.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• The Barclay’s has always been a test of survival and maybe that’s why in the 46 year history of the event it’s 39 champions have won 63 majors.
• There is a lack of trees on a number of holes at Liberty National but with thick rough the emphasis will still be on driving, look for the winner to be very accurate off the tee.
•  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 plethera of greens in regulation this week. Here is a look at the box score from the 2009 Barclays played at Liberty Nationals so you can see who the top players were.
•  The three par fives and the drivable 16th are all key scoring holes with players expecting to make birdies and eagles.</li>
• The course was built to run dry and fast, just like a links course.  But there has been a lot of rain in the last month so this has left the course soft and the greens more likely to hold.  I still think a major key on links courses is the ability to get up and down on holes that the green has been missed.  WInner Heath Slocum was 5th in scrambling in 2009 while runner-up Ernie Els was 29th, Steve Stricker was 6th, Padraig Harrington was 4th and Tiger Woods was 2nd.  So study the PGA Tour list of top scramblers for 2013.
• The weather may not be pretty for Thursday and Friday, with afternoon thurderstorms and light rain showers but they are calling for perfect weather over the weekend.

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

Wisdom says that a player with a lot of experience will win but since this course is a unknown entity a newcomer could do well.  But there is one player that has played a lot of golf at Liberty National, Phil Mickelson.  He plays a lot of corporate outings on the course and calls it one of the favorite courses, so think about him as being a player that could do very well this week.  In 2009 Mickelson finished T52nd so who knows, maybe this is nothing but myth.