BlogBarclays Classic Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

It’s the homestretch of the 2014 PGA Tour season.  After 41 events spread over the last 11 months, for many their season is over.  Guys like Tiger Woods, who won five times couldn’t overcome injury and has seen his season end.  More drastically guys like David Lynn, Roberto Castro and John Merrick, who had a 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

• Dustin Johnson              13th                               Personal problems
• Roberto Castro               21st                                135th
• D.A. Points                     30th                               173rd
• John Merrick                 39th                               133rd
• David Lynn                     48th                               191st
• Scott Piercy                    49th                               166th

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 Brian Davis to Robert Allenby, 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 in 2012 is the highest ranked player at the start of the playoffs that won it.

           Year – FedEx winner        position going into playoffs

• 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-20 to win this race.  For many that is fair, you have to realize that Robert Allenby had just as good of a chance as Rory McIlroy 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.

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 like the Humana Challenge 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 don’t 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 events and west coast swing, 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.

Tournament information:

• This is the 48th 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 will held the 2012 Barclays.  Last year it was played at Liberty National for the second time.

Course information:

• For the first 41 years of this event, it was held at Westchester Country Club which had the reputation of being one of the most-demanding courses on the PGA Tour.  With the change to Ridgewood in 2008, that reputation didn’t change as players loved the A.W. Tillinghast course.  The club has 27 holes and a composite course (seven holes from Ridgewood’s East Course, six from its West Course and five from the Central Course) will be used that measures 7,319 yards and play to a par of 71.
• With only three par 5s, the course will play tough.  Of the 11 par 4s, only two of them are under 400 yards, the 1st and the 5th.  The first is 380 yards while the 5th is a driveable par 4 of 291.  After that,  the 14th hole is the shortest at 412 yards.  Even the par 3s are bears with one being 155 yards, one at 190 and the other two over 217 yards.
• Ridgewood has held a Ryder Cup (1935), and the U.S. Amateur (1974 won by Jerry Pate).  It was the site of the 1991 U.S. Senior Open won by Lee Trevino and in 2001 Tom Watson won the Senior PGA Championship at Ridgewood.
• The course will be tough because of tight fairways with rough that is 3 inches thick and tall mature trees.  The start of the course is an easy section, with holes 6 through 12 being the most demanding.  In 2008, the course played fast and firm but with all of the rain the last couple of weeks it will be very soggy and the rough will be even tougher.
• In 2010, the course played to a 70.977 average and was the 24th hardest course of the year.  The hardest hole was the 18th playing to a 4.236 average.
• In 2008, the course played to a 71.406 average, was the 24th hardest course for that year.  The hardest hole was the 12th, a 475 par 4 that played at 4.34 average.  Matter of fact holes 8 through 12 are the hardest stretch as the 8th hole was the 2nd hardest, the 9th the 6th hardest, the 10th the 4th hardest and the 11th the 3rd hardest.

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

Key stat for the winner:

• The Barclay’s has always been a test of survival and maybe that’s why in the 47-year history of the event it’s 40 champions have won 64 majors.
• 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 Vijay Singh won her in 2008 (53 of 72, rank T-6th).  In 2010, Matt Kuchar hit 51 of 72 and ranked T-15th.
• 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.
• Good putting is a necessity for this event. The course has a stimpmeter rating of 12 with a lot of undulation in the greens, which means players who handle the flat-blade and have a good feel for the green will do well.

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.
• This week is a mix of tour stars like Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, 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 44 winners have held the lead going into the final round and went on to win.  Since 1989, 15 of those 25 third round leaders have won but since leaving Westchester the third round leader only won once in 2011.
• Lastly, the outlook for the tournament couldn’t be any better as sunny skies with temperatures hovering around 80 will be around all four days with very low chance of rain.  But over the course of the last couple of weeks a lot of rain has fallen on Ridgewood, which will make the course play very softly.   So look for those that hit it long to have an advantage plus those that scramble.