Round 1 Notebook: The Barclays

Weather: Partly sunny. High of 83. Winds NW 8-20 mph.

• Lift, clean and place was in effect during the first round of The Barclays.

THE BARCLAYS

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First-round coverage

IS TIGER BACK?: He shot a 65 in Round 1 of The Barclays to take a share of the lead. Is Tiger just teasing us, or is the 65 for real? Story A GOOD START: Helen Ross writes that Tiger Woods was "excited" to grab a share of the first-round lead. Story

KODAK CHALLENGE

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• Tiger Woods and Vaughn Taylor posted matching 6-under 65s to share the 18-hole lead at The Barclays, the first event in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Ryan Palmer, Brian Gay and Adam Scott sit one shot back.

Tiger Woods

• Tiger Woods posted a 6-under 65 on Thursday in his sixth start at The Barclays. His previous-best round at The Barclays was a second-round 66 in 2001. It is his best round on the PGA TOUR since a third-round 62 at the 2009 BMW Championship.

• Woods' 65 is his best round of the season (66, R3, U.S. Open) and snaps a streak of 11 consecutive rounds in the70s (dating to the second round of the British Open). It is just his second sub-70 round in his last 18 rounds andhis seventh overall in 2010 (out of 34).

• This represents the 24th time Woods has opened up a PGA TOUR event with a round of 65 or better. In theprevious 23, he has gone on to win 10 times and finish inside the top five 17 times.

• Prior to Thursday, the last time Woods held the lead in a PGA TOUR event was the second round of THE TOUR Championship in 2009 (finished 2nd), the longest stretch between leads of his career. His last first-round lead came at the 2009 PGA Championship (finished 2nd). In all, he is 13 of 25 when holding at least a share of the first-round lead.

• Woods is currently No. 112 on the FedExCup points list. He will need between a 50th and 57th-place finish this week to move into the top 100 and advance to next week's Deutsche Bank Championship.

• Woods has progressed with each start at The Barclays, missing the cut as an amateur in 1994, followed by T43 (1997), T16 (2001), T13 (2003) and T2 (2009) finishes.

• In his two starts in a PGA TOUR or TOUR co-sanctioned event in New Jersey, Woods finished T4 at the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol GC in Springfield, N.J., and T2 last year at Liberty National. Should he win The Barclays in 2010, New Jersey will become the 17th different state in which he has won a PGA TOUR event.

• The Barclays is one of only three PGA TOUR events in which Woods has made at least three starts yet failed to record a victory (Northern Trust Open -- 11 starts, Waste Management Phoenix Open -- 3 starts). It is also the only PGA TOUR Playoffs event that he hasn't won.

Vaughn Taylor

• Vaughn Taylor's 65 is just one shy of his best round of the year (64, R3, John Deere Classic). It is just his third (out of 15) round in the 60s at The Barclays, matching the final-round 65 he posted in 2007 (T60).

• Taylor, currently No. 38 in the FedExCup standings, is making his sixth start at The Barclays (T64-2009, MC-2008, T60-2007, MC-2006, MC-2004).

• Coming into the week, Taylor had held at least a share of the 18-hole lead four times in his TOUR career. He has never finished worse than T5 in those events (1st at the 2005 Reno-Tahoe Open, 3rd at the 2007 Arnold Palmer Invitational, T3 at the 2006 Verizon Heritage and T5 at the 2004 St. Jude Classic).

Heath Slocum

• Defending champion Heath Slocum opened with a bogey-free 4-under 67 in his attempt to become just the second player to successfully defend a title at The Barclays (Ernie Els, 1996-97). He is the first defending champion of The Barclays in 25 years to post a bogey-free round to start his title defense (Elias Sports).

• The Greater New York Chapter of Crohn's and Colitis Foundation is one of the TICKETS Fore CHARITY participants at The Barclays, and for every birdie Heath Slocum makes at The Barclays, the tournament will donate $150 in his name to the Greater New York Chapter of Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America in honor of the estimated 150,000 children in the United States who are affected by Crohn's and Colitis. Slocum, who suffers from ulcerative colitis, carded four birdies during Thursday's round.

Adam Scott

• Adam Scott is making his seventh-career start at The Barclays, with a runner-up finish in 2006 the best of his five made cuts. Thursday's 66 was quite a turnaround from his previous round at Ridgewood Country Club, a second round 11-over 82 to miss the cut in 2008.

• Scott is making his 17th start of the season, with top-10 finishes at the Valero Texas Open (1st) and the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational (T9). He is currently No. 32 in the FedExCup standings.

Miscellaneous Notes

• FedExCup points leader Ernie Els, who carded an even-par 71 on Thursday, has led the FedExCup standings for 22 consecutive weeks.

• Scott Piercy carded an opening-round 4-under 67. He was the only player to move into the top 125 in the final FedExCup standings at last week's Wyndham Championship. Piercy's T8 finish moved him from No. 140th into the final spot at No. 125.

• Ryan Palmer (66) opened with five consecutive birdies (equaling the longest streak of his career) and seven in his first eight holes en route to a 7-under 28, equaling the low-nine hole score of the season (set on five occasions, most recently by Stuart Appleby at the Greenbrier Classic). Palmer's five-consecutive birdies equals the best start to a round this season (Jeff Quinney, Nos. 1-5, R3, Reno-Tahoe Open).

• Steve Stricker, with a 1-under 70 on Thursday, is the only player to have played in all 49 rounds in the four-year history of the PGA TOUR Playoffs.

• Stricker (70) and Camilo Villegas (67) each have a TOUR-leading seven top-10 finishes in Playoff events (out of 12 total).

• Six players have made it to THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola in each of the first three seasons of the FedExCup:

• Three players finished inside the top 15 in the FedExCup standings in the first three years of the Playoffs:

• Three players have started in all 13 Playoff events (Stewart Cink, Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker).

• The first-round leader/co-leader has gone on to win eight of 36 stroke-play events this season, most recently Arjun Atwal at the Wyndham Championship.