Golfing News

Boy, things sure got interesting on the back nine Saturday at The Barclays, the opening event in the PGA Tour’s four-event FedEx Cup “playoffs.”

Steve Stricker held a three-shot lead as he reached the par-4 12th hole at Ridgewood Country Club. A great big pack of folks were ganged up behind him, and Stricker brought them closer to the lead and drama back into the event when his second shot from the rough was pulled into heavy weeds and rough. He took a lost-ball penalty and made a triple-bogey 7, and the result was a seven-way tie for the tie for the lead. Stricker, Kevin Streelman, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Paul Casey, Sergio Garcia and Hunter Mahan were all in the lead at 7-under as he walked off the green.

Singh and Weir were not part of the ensuing drama. They teed off 90 minutes ahead of the leaders, shot 66 and 67 respectively and watched from the clubhouse as the others jockeyed about on a course that was showing its teeth with hard, fast greens and thickening rough. Shots not coming from the fairway were often hitting the billiard table-like greens and skittering through to the back fringe, or worse.

Garcia birdied 13 to briefly take a lead that he gave back with a bogey at 14. Streelman retook the lead by rolling in a 25-footer for birdie on 16. He finished with a par from the rough on 18 to quietly post a 68, and he leads the event at 8-under by one shot entering Sunday’s final round.

Singh, Weir, Casey and England’s Paul Casey, who lipped out a 40-footer on the 18th green that cost him a share of the lead, will start Sunday at 7-under.

Stricker, who was 12-under on the seventh hole, lost eight shots to par after that and shot 77 to fall to a tie for 11th at 4-under. Playing partner Hunter Mahan, author of a 62 on Thursday, shot 74 and is also 4-under.

Kenny Perry, FedEx Cup points leader coming into the Barclays, shot 72 and is part of a big group at 5-under.

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