A lot at stake for two time winner Singh

BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2011 Deutsche Bank Championship | Preview | 30 Aug 2011

The FedEx Cup Playoffs have reached round two and from last week’s Barclays Classic the PGA Tour drives about 4 hours north to Boston for this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship.

The event is played over its traditional days of Friday to Monday to take advantage of the public holiday that is Labour Day Monday.

The Playoffs are now reduced to 100 for this week’s event although only 99 will take their place with J.B. Holmes again an absentee due to pending brain surgery.

The TPC Boston has played host to this event since 2003 when Adam Scott won his first PGA Tour title. Scott would also finish runner-up in the following year when Vijay Singh won the first of his two Deutsche Bank titles.

The original Arnold Palmer design was redesigned five years after opening by the man who also redesigned last week’s layout at the Plainfield Golf Club in Edison in New Jersey, Gil Hanse, along with Jim Wagner and Brad Faxon.

The player who has most success in the event is Singh who not only won in 2004 en route to becoming the world number one that week but again in 2008 and finished runner-up in 2006.

Singh has been the big improver in recent weeks on the PGA Tour his trip to Germany to have alternative back treatment appearing to have worked wonders in getting him back to a level of fitness whereby he can again compete at this level.

Singh was 4th at Greensboro two weeks ago and tied for third last week so there is every chance his great record at this venue can continue. If he was to do so then the timing could not be better as he chases a place in the International Presidents Cup team after being an absolute long shot just two weeks ago.

The golf course provided Singh with that be one of his great memories when he claimed the number one ranking in the game in 2004 and could potentially provide him with another this week.

Last week’s winner Dustin Johnson just keeps getting better and having finished 4th in this event in 2009 he has a genuine chance to establish an almost unassailable lead in the FedEx Cup race with a backup win.

Steve Stricker won this event in 2009 and has not finished worse than 13th in his last five visits to the event. Having not missed a cut since the 2009 PGA Championship his consistency has been simply stunning and although he has not contended to the death in the last few weeks he has not been too far from his best.

Jason Day has played this event on three occasions improving each year to the point where he finished runner up last year after leading to the final round. Day finished 13th last week and could again do well at this venue.

Adam Scott has not only won the event in 2003 but he finished runner-up the following year and then last year finished 5th. His final round of 76 last week in New Jersey was almost too bad to be true so he deserves another chance.

Matt Kuchar just keeps producing great result after great result. His runner-up finish last week was further evidence of just that and he has played this golf course well enough in each of the last two years. It would be quite a surprise if he was not in the mix on Monday.

Nick Watney and previous winner Phil Mickelson are also logical considerations on paper although both provide reasons for concern. Mickelson has been well below his best since his runner-up finish at Royal St Georges and Watney has a very ordinary record over this layout.

The Australians remaining in the Playoffs in addition to Scott and Day are Marc Leishman, Aaron Baddeley, Robert Allenby, Greg Chalmers, John Senden and Geoff Ogilvy.

A lot of interest this week will centre on the performance of Geoff Ogilvy who might well have his last chance to convince Greg Norman he is still worthy of a place on the International Presidents Cup side.

Ogilvy has slipped to 91 in the FedEx Cup points ranking and given that only the leading 70 will advance to the BMW Championship in two weeks time then Ogilvy will be looking for something special this week in order that he gets another chance to impress.

Allenby and Baddeley are other Australians who could use a good week to assist their cause for late consideration.

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