A tournament that appeared to be anybody’s ball game for most of a sunny, warm and humid afternoon in the Garden State turned into a three-way playoff. Two great putts extended the festivities to a second extra hole.

Vijay Singh won The Barclays in a playoff coming back from an eight-shot deficit after the first round. Singh shot a first-round 70, putting him at T25 and eight strokes back of Hunter Mahan. This ties the largest comeback for Vijay in his career. In his victory at the the 2004 Shell Houston Open, Vijay was 2 over after 18 holes, eight shots back of first-round leader Rod Pampling.

As luck would have it, Sergio Garcia didn’t win The Barclays for the third time in his career. But he approached that playoff with Kevin Sutherland and the eventual champ, Vijay Singh, with the mixture of determination and gracious good humor that marked his youth and endeared the Spaniard to fans worldwide.

When Garcia made a 25-footer for birdie on the first extra hole, he pumped both fists in the air, turned toward the CBS broadcast tower, tapped his chest over his heart and blew a kiss to his European Ryder Cup Captain Nick Faldo. And when Singh answered with his own birdie putt from 24, Garcia grinned, saluted by raising his fist and then high-fived the big Fijian.

Garcia closed with a 70 that included a stellar chip from the gnarly rough beside the 17th green in regulation that produced a 5-inch tap-in to get back into the tie with Sutherland at 8 under that Singh would join later. But it was his putter that kept Garcia in the game — and the man who entered the week ranked 173rd in putting average led the field in that category and tied for second in putts per round and also moved 10 spots up the standings to No. 2 behind Singh with 104,375 points entering this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship.

I must say, i am disappointed that Padraig Harrington did not make the cut. I was enjoying following him.

Tags: GENERAL GOLF TOPICS by Jenn
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Kenny Perry’s eyesight is back to normal two weeks after a scratched and infected cornea knocked him out of the PGA Championship. The 48-year-old Perry withdrew at Oakland Hills because of the eye problems - caused by a warped contact - after a first-round 79. “This is my third pair of contact lenses in my left eye, third one of the week, and it feels real good and I’m seeing pretty good out of it,” Perry said. “I’m excited and it doesn’t hurt. I don’t have any pain. My vision is good again.”

However, he was still a bit fuzzy on the retooled FedEx Cup points picture on the eve of The Barclays, the PGA Tour playoff opener at Ridgewood Country Club. He didn’t need great sight to see that A.W. Tillinghast-designed Ridgewood is a long and demanding layout at 7,319 yards and a par of 71. The tree-lined course’s three par 5s measure 588, 626 and 594 yards and there are four par 4s over 465 yards. The event is at Ridgewood after 41 seasons at Westchester Country Club. Steve Stricker won the playoff opener last year at Westchester, making birdie on four of the last five holes to beat K.J. Choi by two strokes. Next year, the tournament will shift to Liberty National in Jersey City.
With top-seeded Tiger Woods sidelined by a knee injury, Perry is effectively the leader with 99,500 points. Phil Mickelson is second at 99,250, followed by British Open and PGA Championship winner Padraig Harrington at 99,000. Lee Janzen, the last of the 144 qualifiers, has 92,070 points - only 7,430 behind Perry. Last year in the inaugural playoffs, the gap between No. 1 and No. 144 was 15,300 points. The winner Sunday will get 11,000 points - 2,000 more than a year ago - and US$1.26 million from the $7 million purse. Calgary’s Stephen Ames (No. 30), Mike Weir (No. 43) of Bright’s Grove, Ont., and Jon Mills (No. 137) of Oshawa, Ont., are all in the field. The top 120 players after The Barclays will be eligible for the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass. The field will then be cut to 70 for the BMW Championship in St. Louis and to 30 for the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

 Bob Tway withdrew Wednesday to caddie for son Kevin at the U.S. Amateur. Kevin Tway, a freshman at Oklahoma State, won his first-round match Wednesday at Pinehurst. … Ridgewood also was the site of the 1935 Ryder Cup, 1974 U.S. Amateur (Jerry Pate), 1990 U.S. Senior Open (Lee Trevino) and 2001 Senior PGA (Tom Watson).

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Australia’s Katherine Hull won the Canadian Women’s Open on Sunday for her first LPGA Tour title, taking advantage of Yani Tseng’s final-round meltdown for a one-stroke victory at Ottawa Hunt. The 26-year-old Hull, six strokes behind Tseng at the start of the round, shot a 3-under 69 to finish at 11-under 277. Se Ri Pak closed with a 72 to finish second, and Tseng’s 77 left her two strokes behind at 9 under. Hull, the former Pepperdine star who second behind Meena Lee in the 2005 tournament at Glen Arbour in Nova Scotia for her best previous LPGA Tour finish, had four birdies and a bogey Sunday. She earned $337,500. Top-ranked Lorena Ochoa, the 2007 winner at Royal Mayfair in Alberta, shot a 73 to tie for fourth with Sun Young Yoo (69) and Song-Hee Kim (70) at 7 under. Annika Sorenstam, leaving the Tour at the end of the season, had weekend round of 76 and 74 to tie for 21st at 2 over. Michelle Wie, using the last of her six LPGA Tour exemptions this year, tied for 12th at 3 under. She had rounds of 75, 70, 69 and 71. Lorie Kane was the top Canadian, finishing at 4 over. The 43-year-old from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, finished third in 2001 and fifth in 2004.

Carl Pettersson was one imperfect hole from leading the full final two rounds of the Wyndham Championship. It was that brief slip-up that propelled the Swede to victory in his adopted hometown. Pettersson won his local tournament for his first PGA Tour victory in two years, shooting a 2-under 68 on Sunday for a two-stroke victory at Sedgefield Country Club. Irked by a bogey on the 11th hole that temporarily dropped him into second place, Pettersson responded with three birdies during the four-hole stretch that followed to finish at 21-under 259 and earn $918,000.

Scott McCarron briefly led midway through the final round before fading into second with a 68. Rich Beem’s second straight 63 left him four strokes off the lead, with J.J. Henry (62) and rookie Martin Laird (63) another shot behind him. Pettersson made his move immediately after slipping out of the lead for the first time since Friday, when his tournament-record 61 in Round 2 shot him up the leaderboard. He began the back nine with consecutive bogeys, falling one stroke back to 19 under when he missed an 8-foot par putt on the 11th. McCarron gave the stroke back on the 12th, missing a 13-foot birdie putt and lipping out a 4-foot par attempt during just his second bogey.Pettersson birdied the 13th for a one-stroke lead, then went back up by two shots with a birdie on the par-5 15th — the easiest hole on the course for everyone but him, after two bogeys and a par on it. This time it was McCarron’s turn for trouble; he sent his second shot into the sand, recovered and lipped out an 8-foot birdie putt.

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