NORTON, Mass. -- There is that cliche about being able to take the boy out of the country but not being able to take the country out of the boy. Well, the same can be said about Keegan Bradley when it comes to New England. And it can also be said about that chip he has on his shoulder that even the Wanamaker Trophy can't knock off.

Bradley, who was born and raised in Woodstock, Vt., and played on a state championship high school team in Hopkinton, Mass., is having a homecoming of sorts this week at the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Tuesday night he threw out the first pitch at the Red Sox-Yankees game and on Wednesday he fielded questions about whether he could be the PGA Tour Player of the Year.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

"That was one of my dreams," Bradley said about climbing the pitching mound at Fenway Park. "I got to realize that dream last night." Then, in talking about the reaction he got from people at the ballpark, he added: "They know I'm New England. It's fun to come back home." As for being Player of the Year: "That's every player's dream," he said.

NORTON, Mass. -- Spend about five minutes with William McGirt and you can't help but decide you want him to make it through the FedEx Cup Playoffs and reach the Tour Championship. After five minutes, you will also be only about one-third of the way through his answer to your first question. This likeable young man makes Paul Goydos look like a reluctant interview.

Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images

McGirt is the ultimate outsider. He got into the Barclays -- the first of the FedEx Cup Playoff events -- with a T-52 finish at the Wyndham Championship that moved him to No. 125 in FedEx Cup points, the last qualifying spot. Then a T-24 effort in New Jersey moved McGirt to No. 96, sneaking into the top 100 who qualified for this week's Deutsche Bank Championship.

The ballpark guess is that the 32-year-old from Fairmont, N.C., with 13 missed cuts in 27 starts this year and who has yet to secure his playing card for 2012, will need to finish in the top 25 at TPC Boston come Labor Day to advance to next week's BMW Championship by being in the top 70. McGirt winning the FedEx Cup would make the Buster Douglas defeat of Mike Tyson look like a mild upset.

NORTON, Mass. -- The Deutsche Bank Championship certainly is on the good side of Mother Nature. Last year, Hurricane Earl was bearing down on TPC Boston when it suddenly hung a right turn at Nantucket Island and went harmlessly out into the Atlantic Ocean. This year, the impact of Hurricane Irene on the venue and the surrounding area could have been much worse.

The massive storm -- 500 miles wide -- that battered the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine over the weekend did only minimal damage to the site of the second playoff event on the road to the FedEx Cup. Yes, there are still some areas without electricity -- like the hotel that was supposed to house the media -- but given the devastation in areas not far from here -- like Vermont -- the best-case scenario once again played out for the Deutsche Bank.

Charley Hoffman stunned everyone at last year's event. Photo: Getty Images

Now it is just a matter of getting down to golf, and adjusting to the fact this tournament doesn't start until Friday, ending on the Monday Labor Day holiday. Given the travel disruptions and clean-up efforts in the wake of Irene, the late start was a good thing.

Paul Azinger has never been one to shy from expressing an opinion, even those of a political nature, but in doing so on Thursday, he ran afoul of his employer, ESPN.

Azinger took a dig at President Obama in this Twitter post:

It spread rapidly across the Internet, often with "ESPN analyst" mentioned in the headline, prompting USA Today blogger Michael McCarthy to query Andy Hall of ESPN Communications about it. Hall's response: "Paul's tweet was not consistent with our social media policy, and he has been reminded that political commentary is best left to those in that field." McCarthy went on to ask Hall whether Azinger would be "fired, suspended or punished in some way." Replied Hall, "We handle that internally."

This in turn sparked Dana Loesch of Big Journalism, and later Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times, to question whether ESPN had a double standard, depending on which side of the political spectrum its employees fall on. "I wonder if [Kenny] Mayne was ever threatened with his job over his antics," Loesch wrote.

In June, ESPN's Mayne posted this on Twitter:

So we emailed Hall with this question: Based on your statement about ESPN's social media policy, was Mayne similarly reprimanded?

Hall's reply: "Thanks for asking - at the time, Kenny Mayne was reminded about ESPN's social media policy just as Paul Azinger was in this instance."

-- John Strege

What do you think of Azinger's Tweet? Join the conversation on our partner site, GolfWRX.com.

EDISON, N.J. - Dustin Johnson may have come up shy of a round of 59, but his bogey-free, 8-under-par 63 in the second round of the Barclays was good enough for his best round of 2011.

And yet, you could sense the disappointment in the tone of the athletic and talented Johnson in his post-round press conference.

"There's no way I can say I'm disappointed by any means," said a smiling Johnson, who sits one shot behind Matt Kuchar after the morning wave of golfers played what ended up being a moving-day round on Friday. "But as far as I could have done a little better, you know, with the short game [I could have].

"But you know, overall, I mean, a 63 is a 63. I'm going to be smiling."

It's Johnson's best round since a third-round 68 at the British Open, which put him in the final group with eventual champion Darren Clarke. Of course, Johnson remained in contention at Royal St. George's until his 2-iron shot on the par-5 14th went out-of-bounds, leading to a double-bogey 7.

But Plainfield CC on Friday paled in comparison to the tough conditions in Sandwich, England, or that of Atlanta Athletic Club (Johnson missed the cut at the PGA Championship), or Firestone CC (Johnson finished T-47, breaking 70 in only one round).

Wet conditions turned the Donald Ross design into a track in which "every hole was a birdie hole," Johnson said. And that's the way he played, smoking the front nine with a bogey-free 29.

"You can attack it, every flag," Johnson said. "So, it doesn't matter if you're coming in with a 3-iron or a wedge. You can get it close to the hole, because the ball just hits and stops."

Johnson sat at 7-under through 11 holes, and with two par-5s and the driveable par-4 18th awaiting him, a memorable score was not out of the question.

He had just rolled his longest putt of the day, an 18-footer for birdie at the par-3 11th, which curled in perfectly from about two cups outside left. Anxious, he walked to the 12th tee box and waved a towel as he waited for his playing partners to finish up their holes.

Ten minutes later, Johnson waited again on No. 12, this time in the middle of the fairway, 332 yards from the tee waiting for the green to clear. (He even had time to chuckle as the yawn of a spectator echoed on from the gallery.) His 3-iron approach ended up right of the green, forcing him to drop onto the green and end up with a disappointing par.

From there, the hopes of the 59 basically ended, but Johnson put himself one behind Kuchar entering Saturday's final round of the shortened first leg of the FedEx Cup.

But it was a constructive round for Johnson, who agreed when asked if it was his best of the year. He averaged only 1.5 putts per hole in the round (28) despite entering the Barclays ranked 154th in the PGA Tour's total putting category.

Johnson said he has focused on improving his putting stats, adding his struggles often come from getting uncomfortable standing over a putt.

"I don't ever think my stroke's bad," he said. "I struggle a lot of times with my setup."

With an equally hot putter to match his sizzling long game, he is set up to contend for his first win of the season.

-- Stephen Hennessey

EDISON, N.J. - What seemed probable is now official: The Barclays, the first event of the PGA Tour playoffs, will be shortened to 54 holes and will conclude Saturday prior to the arrival of Hurrican Irene.

"We're looking at upwards of 10 to 12 inches of rain between Saturday night and Sunday evening," said PGA Tour tournament director Slugger White, noting that such heavy rainfall would not only make Plainfield CC unplayable Sunday but also Monday and Tuesday.

If the third round can't be completed Saturday - the forecast is "not the best," according to White, with a chance of rain in the morning and a greater chance after 2 p.m. - the tournament would revert to a 36-hole event and the top 100 in the FedEx Cup points list would advance to the next event.

Tee times will be from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday in hopes of getting the third round completed.

"After 2 o'clock, the rain is going to be with us, probably," White said. "Our hope is to finish prior to 2 o'clock. We'll do the best we can. If we had a decent forecast for tomorrow, we might have tried to play 36 holes tomorrow, but we didn't. Time restraints, not a good forecast - it was almost like shooting ourselves in the foot."

The Barclays becomes the first playoff event to be shortened because of inclement weather. It is the first PGA Tour event curtailed to three rounds since the 2009 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

"We weighed all the options available to us, and under normal circumstances, we would obviously prefer to complete 72 holes," said PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. "That's even more true here at the Barclays...But these aren't normal circumstances. We realize that waiting it out until Hurricane Irene passes and trying to play golf on Monday or Tuesday would only add unnecessary strain to those who will be tyring to help the community recover from whatever potential damage this storm causes. The safety of the community, our fans, players, sponsor guests, television partners and staff is of the utmost importance."

A foot of rain last week saturated the golf course. It could handle a bit more rain, perhaps, White said, but not the deluge expected this weekend. "If we're looking at six to 10 more inches of rain, we'd have probably four holes [on lower ground] that you may not be able to get a canoe to."

The soft layout produced more good scores Friday morning, with Matt Kuchar six under for the second round through 17 holes and leading at 14 under by one over Dustin Johnson, who as eight under for his round through 16 holes. As of 1 p.m., 93 players were under par.

UPDATE: "We fully support the PGA Tour's decision to shorten the tournament to 54 holes," said Barclays CEO Bob Diamond. "For the safety of all involved, this is the right call."

UPDATE II (player reaction):

-- Justin Rose: "Well, it's going to be the third and final round, so I guess that made today moving day. I guess I'm going to be up there with the leaders, but it's tough, that's for sure. So if you go out there now and you have a great round, you've got a great chance. The leaderboard is going to be incredibly bunched, it's almost not worth taking too much stock in your position."

-- Fredrik Jacobson: "Today it was great, so that was nice. The rest of the week, it is what it is. I think everyone kind of went in today not really knowing what would happen, but knowing this could happen so it didn't really affect us too much."

-- Gary Woodland: "Obviously you want to play 72 holes, but it's the right thing to do with the weather coming in. Who knows, Monday it looks pretty nice, but the golf course if it does what's projected, it's going to be pretty tough to play, so it was the right thing to do."

-- Bill Fields

EDISON, N.J. - With the way Adam Scott has been playing lately, it wasn't surprising the Australian used the word "ordinary" to describe his eagle at the par-5 16th hole in Thursday's first-round of the Barclays.

A purely hit 3-iron from 253 yards set up a six-footer for eagle that Scott drained, highlighting a five-under-par 31 front nine in which he carded five birdies, too. Her shot even-par 35 on his back nine (the front at Plainfield CC) to finish with a 66.

Ordinary? Extraordinary, maybe.

A win in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club three weeks ago, and three top-10s in his last four tournaments (including a T-6 at the PGA Championship), has Scott on top of his game and contending at the Barclays after a wet and soggy first round.

"I've been confident all year," said Scott, who sits two behind Harrison Frazar, who shot a 7-under-par 64. "I felt my game was in a good place starting the year and I had a good routine going. I've just been working at."

Thursday's start to the FedEx Cup Playoffs may have been nothing close to ordinary, with a two-hour, 40 minute rain delay and a state of emergency declared in the Garden State complicating things for tournament officials. But Scott made it look easy playing the back nine, parring only one hole in that stretch.

Scott nearly eagled again on the 285-yard, par-4 18th hole that has everyone looking forward to a crazy finish during the final round, whenever that may be. Scott's tee shot finished only nine feet from the flagstick, but he left the eagle effort a foot short.

Coming out after the rain delay to play the remaining nine holes, Scott couldn't seem to pick up the speed of the greens, missing three straight birdie opportunities on holes six through eight. He shook his head slowly after missing putts at Nos. 1 and 2.

"It was more the variance in pace that made them a little tricky today," Scott said. "It was just tough today, because they changed pace obviously after the rain, and I even think this morning, they were not as fast as maybe the practice round or the pro-am. So it took a bit of adjusting to that."

Still, he was comfortable sitting two shots down after the crazy start to the FedEx Cup playoffs, even though he left a couple shots on the course after the rain delay.

"I was liking the way I was seeing the course going as it firmed up for this morning's round. It was looking real good," he said. "It will be interesting to see how the rest of the week pans out for a lot of reasons, but very happy to start this way."

-- Stephen Hennessey

EDISON, N.J. - As the red numbers flowed on the leader board at a softened-up Plainfield CC in the first round of the Barclays, just as much attention, if not more, was being paid to what the potential wrath of Hurricane Irene could do to the first event in the PGA Tour playoffs.

In the 1987 U.S. Women's Open at Plainfield, weather problems forced the championship to a Tuesday conclusion. That type of timetable isn't out of the question for the Barclays, which could also finish on any one of three days preceding Tuesday, depending on how severe the weather turns out to be and how the PGA Tour decides to handle the unfortunate curve ball.

PGA Tour tournament director Slugger White briefed reporters late Thursday afternoon. The only certainty is that, owing to a lack of daylight and a dodgy forecast for Saturday afternoon, the tour has ruled out trying to play 36 holes Saturday and finish the tournament prior to the arrival of Irene's full fury.

"We'll make a determination on what we are going to do tomorrow [Friday] afternoon," White said. "I really don't want to paint myself in a corner right now. There are a lot of scenarios."

According to tour regulations a Tuesday finish is an option only if half the field has finished 72 holes by Monday night. Barring that, a Tuesday wrap-up would have to be mandated by PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.

"Then the commissioner would have to step in and override the regulation," White said. "He's the only one that could do that unilaterally. So I've got him on fast dial right now."

While the various scenarios are being considered, tournament officials will begin making alterations at Plainfield out of safety concerns. Mesh netting on towers and grandstands will be removed to make those structures less susceptible to high winds. Scoreboards may be taken down. "We don't need one of them landing in somebody's yard that borders the golf course," White said, cognizant of a Honda Class in south Florida. "We had stuff that was just blowing around, and it was very, very dangerous," White said. "We are not going to take that chance, I can guarantee you."

The sober assessment was in line with the state of emergency issued Thursday by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who urged coastal residents to evacuate within 24 hours and warned inland residents that the storm could bring flooding to a state already innudated by rain recently. "We are not overreacting, we need to be ready for this," Christie said, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Because of how much rain the Garden State has already received in recent weeks, rivers are already running above normal and the ground is saturated, making trees more vulnerable to being toppled by strong winds. White said Plainfield CC received 13 inches of rain last week, and several low-lying holes on the back nine of the Donald Ross-designed course are very wet.

"I would say 16 of the holes are fine and could probably take more [rain], but 13 and 14, I don't know how much more those greens can take," said Harrison Frazar, who shot seven-under 64 to take the lead among the morning starters who had finished the rain-delayed first round. "That creek in there can get up pretty quickly. I think that's the question mark."

If Irene dumps the amount of rain that is possible out of a hurricane or tropical storm, there may not be any questions.

"If we get five or seven inches of rain," White said, "we are probably dead in the water."

Being the low man after 54 holes is probably a very good idea.

-- Bill Fields