Seven days ago, Sergio Garcia wasn’t even sure if he would be eligible to play in The Barclays for the start of the PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup.
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Webb Simpson…34-32–66
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Heath Slocum…32-34–66
Charley Hoffman…33-33–66
Padraig Harrington..35-32–67
Ian Poulter…32-35–67
David Toms…34-33–67
Kevin Streelman…35-33–68
Robert Allenby…32-36–68
Justin Leonard…35-33–68
Nick Watney…33-35–68
Richard S. Johnson.34-34–68
Rod Pampling…36-32–68
Lee Janzen…34-34–68
John Merrick…34-34–68
Ryan Moore…34-34–68
Matt Kuchar…35-33–68
Mark Calcavecchia..35-34–69
Steve Stricker…34-35–69
Kevin Sutherland…32-37–69
Michael Letzig…36-33–69
Jim Furyk…35-34–69
Tim Petrovic…36-33–69
Cameron Beckman..35-35–70
Davis Love III…35-35–70
Stewart Cink…33-37–70
Brian Gay…33-37–70
Tiger Woods…36-34–70
Zach Johnson…35-35–70
D.A. Points…36-34–70
Bill Lunde…35-35–70
Stephen Ames…35-35–70
Jason Day…36-34–70
Brett Quigley…34-36–70
Bo Van Pelt…36-34–70
Dustin Johnson…35-35–70
Retief Goosen…35-35–70
Phil Mickelson…36-34–70
Alex Cejka…36-35–71
Todd Hamilton…35-36–71
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Y.E. Yang…36-35–71
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Kevin Stadler…38-38–76
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Matt Bettencourt…39-38–77
Daniel Chopra…40-37–77
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Kevin Stroud…WD
Suddenly, he has a splendid view from the top.
Garcia took another important step toward recovering from a troublesome season Thursday with a 6-under 65 at Liberty National for a share of the lead with Paul Goydos and Steve Marino.
“We are getting back into it,” Garcia said. “Last week was nice. It was good to see ourselves … getting that feeling of being out there trying to win a tournament and getting the juices flowing a little bit. We’re just looking forward to hopefully finishing the year well here, keep this good momentum going.”
AP Sports Writer
Phil Mickelson salvaged a 1-under 70 on Thursday in the first round of The Barclays at Liberty National, birdieing three of his final seven holes and hitting a trademark flop shot to inches for a closing par.
“I had a great day with my putter,” said Mickelson, who has an endorsement deal with Barclays and is a Liberty National member. “I didn’t make anything outside 10 feet, but I made everything inside of 7, 8 feet. That’s critical for me.”
Though he belongs to the ultra-exclusive club, he admitted he’d never seen some of the back tee boxes on the 7,419-yard layout until this week.
“Because it’s such a tight golf course, having to play from those yardages is very difficult,” the three-time major winner said. “But you know, everybody has got to do it this week. I just don’t do it when I have a choice.”
Lefty had a bit of scare when he jarred his left elbow during a mid-round stretch when he dropped four strokes in five holes.
“I stung my elbow,” he said. “It hurt for a few holes. On nine, I had to hit a shot hard out of the rough and the rough is pretty thick and heavy. I jarred my elbow. It feels a little bit better. I don’t think it will be an issue.”
Mickelson, who took six weeks off earlier this summer after his wife and mother were diagnosed with breast cancer, is taking time to soak in the sights at the waterfront course and on his way back and forth from his Manhattan hotel.
“I love going by the Statue of Liberty every night. That’s cool,” he said. “Every morning we cruise right by it on the ferry and same thing going back. It makes me appreciate where we live. We live in the greatest place.”DIPLOMACY » Robert Allenby passed on a chance to criticize the course — soft of.
“I really don’t know how to answer that in the right way because I could really get myself into a lot of trouble,” the Australian said, when asked about Liberty National’s tricky greens after his opening 3-under 68.
He did offer a telling sarcastic jab after struggling to detail his round. “I can’t remember which hole’s which,” Allenby said. “That’s the sign of a great course.”
Davis Love III looked at the positives.
“Condition-wise it’s the best course we’ve played in a long time,” Love said. “It’s a pretty nice place to come and play, whether you like the third green or not.”
Love opened with a 70. He parred the difficult par-4 third, holing a 10-foot putt on the small sloping green surrounded by shaved run-off areas.
“It’s hard,” Love said. “You’re not just going to bunt it around her and make a bunch of birdies. … You better get 14 (the 144-yard par 3) and the par 5s.”
Paul Goydos, tied for the lead with Sergio Garcia and Steve Marino at 65, accepted the hard course for what it is.
“It’s a long, hard golf course with difficult greens,” Goydos said. “I don’t think it’s meant to be easy, I know that. I don’t think (co-designer) Tom Kite was thinking, ‘Let’s see how easy I can make this course.'”RETURN TO SENDER » Vijay Singh and Camilo Villegas shot 75s in the first round of the playoffs after combining to win all four events last year.
Singh won The Barclays at Ridgewood, then took the Deutsche Bank Championship the following week and went on to win the FedEx Cup.
The big Fijian has won The Barclays a record four times, three at Westchester Country Club. Fifty-ninth in the FedEx Cup standings, he’s winless this year and has only three top-10 finishes in 19 starts.
Villegas, 35th in the points race, won the final two FedEx Cup events — the BMW Championship and Tour Championship — and finished second in the playoff standings.BADA BING » The Gambino crime family had a 150,000-square foot warehouse on the site of Liberty National’s $60 million clubhouse.
“To be honest, they were more professional than some other landowners we’ve dealt with,” said Dan Fireman, the son of club founder Paul Fireman.OMEGAMAN » Sergio Garcia, tied for the first-round lead with Paul Goydos and Steve Marino after a 6-under 65, will select a partner Friday for the Spanish entry in the Omega Mission Hills World Cup in China on Nov. 26-29.
Garcia, seventh in the world ranking, will choose between No. 38 Miguel Angel Jimenez and No. 40 Alvaro Quiros.
Garcia has an endorsement deal with Omega and spent four hours Monday at the Swiss watchmaker’s Fifth Avenue boutique, in part working with children from The First Tee of Metropolitan New York. On Sunday after the tournament, he plans to visit countryman Rafael Nadel at the U.S. Open tennis tournament.DIVOTS » Ian Poulter holed out from 120 yards for an eagle on the 442-yard, par-4 fifth. He shot a 67. … The top 100 in the FedEx Cup points after the event will be eligible for the Deutsche Bank next week in Norton, Mass. The field will be cut to 70 for the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in Lemont, Ill., and to 30 for the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta.
At a different venue, Garcia stayed the course. He is a two-time winner of this tournament, both times at tree-lined Westchester. On a track with intimidating views inside the ropes and gorgeous vistas of Manhattan, he wound up in a familiar spot.
In some respects, so did Tiger Woods.
The Barclays is the only tournament Woods has played at least three times without finishing in the top 10. He shot a 70.
Most players would have taken such a score when they first saw Liberty National. The course played significantly shorter, however, with five tees moved forward, and it showed in the scoring. Nearly half the field was at par or better, and some two dozen players shot in the 60s.
Goydos ran off five birdies in a six-hole stretch starting with the 16th hole, which he attributed to great putting, solid wedge play, and the PGA Tour rules staff for being gentle with hole locations and some forward tees.
“In theory, you have 125 of the best players on the PGA Tour here this week, someone is going to shoot a low round every day,” Goydos said. “Today was my chance.”
Marino seized on his opportunity, too, getting to 7 under until a bogey on his last hole.
They were one shot ahead of a group that included Charley Hoffman, who stumbled in by missing a 4-foot birdie putt on No. 8 and having to save bogey with an 8-foot putt on his final hole.
Y.E. Yang, in his first tournament since taking down Woods in the final round to win the PGA Championship, had a 71.
Woods looked solid in his return to The Barclays for the first time in six years, until he lost some control toward the end. Poor tee shots took away easy birdie chances on a pair of par 5s late in his round, and another one led to his lone bogey at No. 7.
Woods declined interview requests, telling PGA Tour officials he was going to the chipping area.
“You’ve got to make hay on the par 5s here,” Woods said in a brief interview with XM Radio. “You don’t get too many opportunities around this place, and I only made one birdie on the par 5s.”
He probably would have taken a 70 after his first time around Liberty National, a course that has received scant praise from the players this week. The best anyone has said about the course designed by Tom Kite and Bob Cupp is that it is hard.
“It’s a long, hard golf course with difficult greens,” Goydos said. “I don’t think Tom Kite was thinking, ‘Let’s see how easy I can make this course.’ I don’t think that was his mindset.'”
Still, it helped that the hole locations were accessible, and the course wasn’t as long as its 7,419 yards. The biggest difference was the 18th, where Woods turned to the right, stopped when he couldn’t find the tee markers, then marched 50 yards forward.
“Someone around here is smart,” Zach Johnson said under his breath.
Phil Mickelson, a member at Liberty National, made four bogeys in a five-hole stretch around the turn, the meatiest part of the course. He bounced back for a 70.
The biggest rally, however, belonged to the 29-year-old Garcia.
He opened his year with a couple of top 10s in Abu Dhabi and Qatar on the European Tour. The rest of the season has been a letdown, consumed by poor play and the breakup with Morgan Norman, the daughter of Greg Norman.
Garcia tied for 10th at the U.S. Open, his only top 10 for a seven-month stretch until he tied for fourth last week in Greensboro, N.C., a tournament he only played to make sure he got into the playoffs.
He showed quickly that might be more than just a good week. Garcia ran off four birdies on the back nine (he started at No. 10), twice making birdie putts in the 15-foot range. His best shot came on the third hole, a 9-iron from 138 yards into a breeze that was the proper distance on a hole where it can be tough to get it close.
Then came the cheers, with consecutive wedges that danced around the cup and set up tap-in birdies.
“It’s obviously very nice, after last week and playing well and being up there all week in contention, to open this tournament with a good, solid round,” Garcia said. “Don’t be deceived by the scores. It’s not an easy course. That’s important. And hopefully, we can go out there tomorrow and play another solid round.”
