Thomas Edison, N.L. (AP) Harrison Frazar aimed to be the champion of The Barclays. Many people wanted to take a look at was Irene.
Whatever enthusiasm there was for the start of the FedEx Cup 2009-2010 season had dampened by Thursday - first by rain that halted the opening round for nearly three hours, then by the ominous threat of Hurricane Irene. This left players and officials to muse on whether, how, and if they could finish the opening playoff event.
From the early starters - who didn't finish until mid-afternoon - Frazar navigated a barrage of birdies on the weather-softened Plainfield Country Club, shooting a 7-under 64. One of the few times he got into trouble, he chipped in from behind the first green to save bogey immediately after a double bogey.
Vijay Singh turned a double bogey at the start of his round into a 29 on the back nine and appeared tied with Jonathan Byrd. Adam Scott was among those at 66. Nick Watney, the No. 1 seed coming into the $12 million FedEx Cup finale, ended up being at 67.
When it grew dark and irregular to continue, fifty-one players hadn't completed a round. They were given another chance starting at 6:15 a.m. on Friday, although tee times for the second round were pushed back about a half hour.
William McGirt, one of the 125 players who qualified for the 2009-2010 season, had to settle after making his seventh birdie on the sixth hole to go to 6-under par through 11 holes. Bubba Watson, the defending champion of the Barclays, was also at seven under through 16 holes.
"Needed to get done today," Frazar said. "Considering the conditions are coming, I didn’t want to have sitting around and play a lot next week or fancy Saturday. It’s going to be a long week once this thing is over."
Slammer White, the tour's vice president of competitions, was hopeful that everyone in the morning group would at least make the turn. That would give the tournament a chance to finish 36 holes by Friday afternoon, in case the forecast wind and rain keeps away for a specified duration, complete another round Wednesday.
Not a single person was assured what to expect beyond that, whether anything at the very least. White ruled out some sort of 36-hole Sunday format.
The quandary is that Plainfield already has 15 inches of rain over the past weeks and likely can't handle much more.
"If we get another five or six inches of bad weather here, we're probably dead in the water," White said.
That's enough time the 125 players who qualified can start thinking about golf's main payoff - $10 million to the winner after four playoff events in these five weeks. Officials end ... again covered "PGA Tour to 2009-2010 Season" into the fairway of just one hole, similar to what is seen on midfield at a football game.
It's actually a thought a color didn't wash off.
However, the Deutsche Bank Championship last year braced for remnants of Hurricane Earl to possibly rain out large chunks of the tournament outside Boston, and it never materialized.
Inclement weather isn't uncommon in playing golf, and fall has a way to but dwindle tournaments to aid live pockets should there be no access mandated to complete by Wednesday. But that isn't an ordinary reason. The best players in the FedEx Cup standings move on from the Barclays to the next round.
What might help is that the next event, the Deutsche Bank, doesn't begin until Monday following the conclusion of its criteria Work Morning. Only PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem holds the authority allowing a Tuesday finish regardless if it reaches that.
"I don't think anyone expects any kind of reprieve," Charley Hoffman said from a 66. "I’m sure totally folks hope to play 72 holes out underneath, and immediately we all know the incident (three weeks) isn’t going cracking up until Monday. So I am tin bet the actors can commit to head to Monday if possible. If the next venue gets 13 inches of rainfall two weeks consecutively, I’m not sure how playable that golf course will be on Monday."
Clearly, there was much talk about conditions that Watney said he penetrated a current rumor that New York could be cleared. Left unsaid was precisely how he saw the real issue even while getting very obsessed about his game to test such reports.
He found it amusing, whatever.
"That will be an unusual sight related to evacuating Long Island," he was quoted saying. "Where would everyone go? That is like 15 million people."
Everybody else just kept pushing forward, managing a course that provided company and excitement until they came back from the weather delay and tried to handle how many a golf ball was rewriting once it landed on the green.
The competition was a sellout even before it began, and despite the weather, apparently there was plenty of cheers. With always the t-shirts shifted up aboard the elevated eighteenth hole recently, so it merely acted 285 meters the tilt, the lone ace crown came from Troy Matteson, who pitched in along 40 years. Steven Bowditch hit his first tee shot apt inside five feet, merely apt three-putt for a par.
Singh, who reached a beautiful approach shot within six feet on the difficult 17th for birdie, had to the front side of the green on the eighteenth in appending to marred to eight feet to close out his round with back-to-back birdies. Which atoned for impacting into the water on the par-three third.
In the meanwhile, White said a head won't choose how to shake along until they see the prediction on Friday.
"I wouldn’t like to paint myself into a corner right now," he said. "There’s a lot of scenarios out there."
DIVOTS: T.N. Holt was not in the master-am Wednesday, but he still devised a magnificent method of his time. He traveled up to True pine Vale in southern New Jersey to watch the sunset of The Barclays. ... Pat Perez withdrew after opening with an 80, though his spot is defended to rest and drama next week around Boston. ... The morning started under normal light, but participants were told they would pick up, shipshape and place their balls in the fairway because of reaching conditions.
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Frazar commonly takes navigate seeing namely converge turns apt aid Irene