Playoffs preview: Quick look at The 2009 Barclays
| Preview: 2009 Playoffs | ||||
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FIELD SIZE: Top 125 players from the PGA TOUR Regular Season
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LOOKING FORWARD: The top 100 in the FedExCup standings advance to the following week's Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass.
TV: GOLF CHANNEL/CBS
LAST YEAR: Vijay Singh beat Sergio Garcia and Kevin Sutherland in a playoff to capture the first PGA TOUR Playoff event at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. Singh made a do-or-die birdie putt on the first playoff hole after Garcia sank a birdie putt just a bit longer as Sutherland was eliminated. Singh two-putted for birdie on the second playoff hole to capture the title.
COURSE: Liberty National Golf Club, Jersey City, N.J.
SUMMARY: The Liberty National view alone is enough to dazzle the PGA TOUR golfers and fans. The Jersey City, N.J., course overlooks Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The Tom Kite/Bob Cupp-designed golf course, which opened in 2006, can play as long as 7,400 yards to par 71. The course features one mile of Hudson River shoreline, with Manhattan two miles away and the Statue of Liberty less than 1,000 yards from the 18th green, which has a unique clubhouse to its right that resembles the Sydney (Australia) Opera House.
The course site had been degraded by industrial use through the early 1990s and required extensive drainage and fill dirt to build the course, which has small greens and wispy bluegrass rough in places. "Everything underneath the golf course is engineered, so we had to build the course like a wedding cake," Dan Fireman, the project manager for the course and son of Liberty National owner Paul Fireman, told The Met Golfer in 2006. "We just kept adding layers to it."
Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., the site of the 2008 Barclays, will host the 2010 Barclays. Plainfield Country Club in Edison, N.J., will host the 2011 event.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: "All good golf courses have some sort of optical illusions to mess with the golfers' minds. Liberty National is no different. Bunkers placed in unusual and varying locations create confusion, making the greens look either closer or farther than the yardage. Mounds blocking the sight lines from various angles place demands, but the professional player quickly figures these tricks out during practice rounds ...
"I'm sure the PGA TOUR players will be totally focused when playing their shots at Liberty National. But if their minds and thoughts do not wander some when looking at the New York skyline, the Verrazano Bridge and the Lady herself (Statue of Liberty) then they are just not paying attention. No matter how often or how many times you have seen these sites you cannot help but be overwhelmed at their beauty or what they represent. They are our country's history and as such will always be a part of Liberty National's history." -- Tom Kite
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