Marquee group leaves a lot on the table in Round 1
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
PARAMUS, N.J. -- It was the pairing worthy of the big boards in Times Square.
The top three guys on the working FedExCup points list, not necessarily in order.
Winner of three PGA TOUR events this year, one Kenny Perry.
Winner of three of the last six majors, including the last two, one Padraig Harrington.
And, of course, the perennial people's choice, one Phil Mickelson.
Huge gallery. Tough day. Entire pairing upstaged by Hunter Mahan's opening 62.
Oh well.
"(Caddie) Ronan (Flood) had to remind me that I wouldn't be as good Thursday as I would be Sunday,'' Harrington said.
Still it wasn't enough to take the sting out of two sixes on his card -- both from the edge of the green -- in this opening round of The Barclays. Or the opening 72 that fell in line with Perry's 69 and Mickelson's 70.
"I worked my way through most of the round,'' said Harrington, who came into The Barclays fourth in the points. "As I said, I made a few mistakes in the middle of the round and missed a couple of putts from four or five feet for birdie, but I look back at the two sixes, and gave away four shots, or certainly two on those holes.''
He wasn't alone. Perry hemorrhaged at the ninth hole -- their 18th -- for a bogey to end "A nice, boring round.''
Mickelson thought he could have gotten more out of his day.
"I thought I played well today,'' Mickelson said. "I thought the scores weren't going to be as low as they were. Hunter had such a great round and there were some 4 or 5 under par rounds.
"So my 1 under par round is not as good as I thought it would be, but I thought I played well and I'll take it. I obviously need to make up some ground tomorrow and have a good day.''
Ridgewood have up six morning rounds of 67 or better to open the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedEx Cup. But it was looking tougher in the afternoon.
"There are tournaments where I'll shoot 6 or 7 under and that's as good as I can play and the winner is 21 under and I'm thinking, how did they do that?'' Perry said, reacting to the 62. "Did they quit after 15 or what?
"It's funny how some courses fit a guy's eye and rip it down the gut all day, and some guys are struggling and are marginal and struggling here and there and hitting rough and scraping around it trying to make pars.''
Perry did say the rough was tough. Not U.S. Open tough, but penal.
"The rough here is terrible,'' he said. "I hit a couple balls ten, 15 yards off the main and it was fine over there.''
Added Harrington, "Oh, yeah, you don't want to miss the fairway and you're forced to take on a lot of shots out there. You've got to hit it well off the tee. I managed that okay.''
After his win at the PGA Championship, Harrington took a week of vacation in Tryon, N.C., where he is building a home. The time away left his short game a bit more ragged than he'd like.
Bad play, he said, on his behalf. It wasn't the course.
The threesome watched putts slide by all day and ended with a combined 90 putts -- an even 30 each. Mickelson hit more fairways (10 ) while Perry hit more greens (14). No one really walked off with a smile.
"It was a learning curve out there,'' Perry said. "We had two practice rounds. I need to get a little bit more precise and hit my irons a little bit better and give me another day looking at the green surfaces together and trying to figure out the reads.''
So what will it take to shoot a low round?
"That's a good question, because you can drive the ball well and hit good iron shots,'' Mickelson said. "But if you don't come into the green properly, it's hard to get it close, because the subtleties will pull the ball away from the hole.''
"I think that's the biggest challenge is controlling the iron shots to get it close to the hole because of all the mounding on the green that pulls the ball away.''
The Big Three will be paired again tomorrow --- but this time off the first tee. And even though they're not leading -- they're actually playing catch up, there will be a crowd there to watch these headliners.
"(The pairing) is, and I think that's my favored thing about the FedExCup is the pairings,'' Mickelson said. "Last year, one two and three played together, too. It was fun to play with Tiger and Vijay last year at Boston, or the Deutsche Bank, last year."
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