The Barclays
Fantasy Fix
Through the use of statistics, trends, course-matchups and sometimes a magic eight ball, we will do our best to help you set your fantasy golf lineup
Maybe Fluff should have made sure his player's alarm clock was set.
The Barclays
Where: Paramus, N.J.
Course: Ridgewood CC
Defending champion: Heath Slocum held off an all-star cast of Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington by one shot to pick up his first PGA Tour title at Liberty National.
Purse: $7,500,000
Welcome to another edition of Fantasy Fix, where we're glad we won't have to worry about Monday qualifiers for the next few weeks.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs are here and only your ranking can allow you access to golf's biggest prize pool. Predicting what's going to happen from week to week in a sport loaded with parity is tough enough without having to deal with some guy like Arjun Atwal playing his way into the tournament and winning.
Congrats to Atwal on his surprising and impressive accomplishment, but now it's time to focus on the players who have been playing well on the PGA Tour all season long. Or at least just playing. The top 125 players earned their spots into this week's the Barclays, the first leg of four postseason events. From there, the fields will continue to get smaller until only the top 30 will tee it up at the concluding Tour Championship next month. We would go into more details about how the point system works in the playoffs, but since it changes every year, we're not entirely sure.
The site of this particular tournament has been just as unstable. After 41 straight years of being hosted by Westchester Country Club, the event has moved each of the past three years. This time it returns to Ridgewood Country Club, which was the site in 2008.
Keeping all that in mind, who do we see moving deeper into the postseason and who do we think will be slamming their trunk and taking a few weeks off following Friday's round? Here are some thoughts.
STUDS
Paul Casey: The PGA Tour titles haven't flowed in since the Englishman picked up his first last year at the Shell Houston Open, but the ninth-ranked player in the world is too good to be stuck on one win for too much longer. Ridgewood could be the place for No. 2 after a T-7 there in 2008. Casey will also come in with some added motivation to do well since he is now auditioning for Colin Montgomerie after being bumped from an automatic spot for the European Ryder Cup team thanks to Peter Hanson winning the Czech Open. Another strong finish like what he managed at both the British Open (T-3) and PGA Championship (T-12) would certainly help his chances.
Ridgewood Country Club is a great fit for Jim Furyk, who is looking to bounce back from a disastrous final-round 77 at the PGA Championship. Furyk navigated the course's narrow fairways with a T-12 in 2008 and is trailing just Ernie Els and Steve Stricker in the standings, he enters the playoffs with his best chance so far of winning the FedEx Cup. There's no reason for him not to get off to a strong start in the home stretch here. (UPDATE: Unless of course, he oversleeps, misses his pro-am time, and gets disqualified from the tournament. Sadly, we're not making this up.)
Heath Slocum may technically be the defending champ at this event, but Vijay Singh is the only former champion to have won on this course. We'll put a little more stock in that fact and put our support behind the Big Fijian this week. Singh has showed flashes of great play recently with a solo ninth at the AT&T National and a second-round 66 at Whistling Straits that put him in contention at the PGA Championship. This also just seems to be his time of the year as he is the only man not named Tiger Woods to have won the FedEx Cup trophy.
And then there's David Toms, who nearly won the Wyndham Championship last week thanks to a final-round 64. Atwal's clutch par putt on the final hole as Toms watched on TV was the difference (We liked his crack that Atwal was paying playing partner Scott McCarron to show him the line), but the runner-up finish was still his best of 2010 by far. Like Sedgefield Country Club, Ridgewood is an older course that rewards accuracy more than length. Toms is consistently one of the straightest drivers on tour (No. 6 this year) and if his putter stays hot, he could be among the leaders again come Sunday.
DUDS
Ryan Moore: Two years ago, Moore managed to finish dead last when this event was at Ridgewood, shooting rounds of 76 and 78. Also, he's coming off an equally-disappointing missed cut in Greensboro as the defending champion. After being labeled a Fantasy Fix "stud," let's just say we're not happy with him for making us look bad.
On the other hand, Anthony Kim, who we continue to label a "dud," has been making us look good of late. Kim missed another cut at the Wyndham Championship in his return from thumb surgery. While he needs to get back on track if he is to be one of Corey Pavin's captain's picks, we don't think that a fourth straight week of playing competitive golf is the best thing for his recovery.
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