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By John Maginnes
PGATOUR.com Contributor

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- I don't like soccer. Sure, I have gotten caught up in Beckhamania in the last couple of months. That is a guilty pleasure that I hate to admit. Maybe it has something to do with Posh, I don't know. I will consult my therapist. But I like games with more offense than defense. Besides, the clock runs forwards in soccer and you never know when it is going to stop.

Jeff Overton -- and others -- have dropped jaws all weekend at Greensboro. (WireImage)

We don't have a clock in golf. We don't need one. At the majors and many other tournaments this year, we have seen a lot of defense. The Masters and U.S. Open both crowned winners who were over par for the week. Watching the best players in the world challenged on the best golf course is fun. It makes us all feel better about our games. Heck, I can still chunk it out of the rough and make bogeys and double bogeys.

But, what is happening at Forest Oaks this week boggles the mind. If you were one of the many who looked at the field at the Wyndham Championship and thought the field to be weak, well, take another look. A field that lacks star power is showing not only the depth of play on the PGA TOUR but how exciting that play can be.

Forest Oaks has always been considered a pretty good test. The golf course certainly presents opportunities for scoring, but never before have TOUR players ripped it apart quite like this. The cut was 5-under par, the lowest in tournament history by two strokes and the lowest on TOUR this year. Amazingly, there were 86 guys who were 5 under or better.

Now, I like offense but that is preposterous. There are several reasons why the scoring is so much lower here than anything that we have seen in the past. The time of year is a big factor. Bent grass greens tend to wilt in the heat of summer. The greens crew has to keep a significant amount of moisture on the greens to keep them alive through the dog days.

Consequently, the greens are softer and slower than is the norm on the PGA TOUR. The softness allows players to attack the hole locations. Most weeks, players try to avoid short-siding themselves. Short-siding is when you miss the green on the same side of the green as the hole, leaving yourself little green to work with. On soft greens like the players are facing this week, a short-sided chip or pitch may actually be easier than one that has a lot of green to cover. This is a formula for aggression.

The biggest factor that has contributed to the fabulous scoring is the fact that the golf course plays significantly shorter this time of year. The average temperature this week is at least 30 degrees warmer than it was last fall when Davis Love III won the Sam Snead Trophy. Compared to last fall, the ball is jumping. Nearly every player in the field can reach every par 5.

Over the first 36 holes, there were 48 eagles posted by the field. In the opening round there were 668 birdies and 30 eagles. That is an average of 4.5 holes under par per player in the opening round. Jonathan Byrd leads the TOUR with 3.78 birdies per round for the year.

The leaderboard has been lit up like a slot machine on a holiday weekend. If this was a baseball game they would have run out of pitchers and started dragging people out of the stands and suiting them up.

But, this is golf -- perhaps of a different variety than we have seen lately, but of a very entertaining kind. While we are watching what amounts to a wild card race for the playoffs, we are mesmerized by scoring to which most of us can't relate.

The players will tell you that they wouldn't want to play a tournament that takes 20-something under to win every week. But, every now and then, it is fun -- kind of like a soccer game that ends 21-20. Oh, yeah, that is the other kind of football -- the one I actually watch.