The Barclays, round four: Stricker's victory from the jaws of defeat

There’s a theory going the rounds that Steve Stricker won because he lost: that as he watched K J Choi’s dramatic recovery from dropping three shots on the front nine he decided the game was up, relaxed and - voila! - the birdies started flowing. It’s not quite the way Stricker tells it, but even he says he thought ‘Here he goes’ as Choi’s recovery evoked memories of how the Korean stiffed him and others at the AT&T.

No matter, Stricker’s four-birdie spree down the last five holes was as sweet a finish as you could hope for, even if it was not quite the result I had been looking for.

Not so sweet was the way the final threesome performed on the first nine holes, as they collectively froze. Choi puts his poor play down to a hurried swing, corrected when it was spotted by his caddie (No, I still couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but thankfully this time asapsports.com could!). In the end it was the battle of the putters that Choi lost, with Stricker wielding the hottest flat stick of the tournament. I just wonder, if Choi had sunk his birdie shot on the 18th, whether the pressure on Stricker might have put them in a playoff.

Choi’s failure was disappointing, but if they weren’t greedy there was no difficulty for backers to take a profit as his price hit just over 1.3 when he took the lead down the back stretch. That’s the joys of exchange betting for you. Anyway, time to move on before we all get drowned in Stricker’s victory tears.

One thing I did detect over the weekend was increasing media negativity to the FedEx concept. Even many of the players still seem wary. “I wasn’t out there thinking about the FedExCup points,” was Stricker’s verdict.

Yet some are clearly picking up on it and Phil Mickelson seemed excited by this “fun culmination to the season". What he especially liked was basing the pairings on the points standings so that, for instance, he opened with Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk. “That adds some excitement I think to the start of the week.” It’s something worth thinking about for all tournaments, I would have thought.

What ticks me off is the way the commentators seem to have gone to a prep school for FedEx Cup cheerleaders, with their constant barrage of fairly meaningless talk of points and places. And I suspect the points system itself will turn out to be faintly silly. Obviously, it’s emminently possible the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup winners will be two different players; isn’t that going to confuse people? The FedEx winner could also be decided long before the final round, turning it into a bit of an anti-climax.

For all that, the Barclays was a first class contest, Tiger or no Tiger, and to have a full four weeks of this level of competition to cap the season is just fine by me, however you want to call it. I guess, though, the final verdict must await the TV ratings.

PS: Punters might have lost a “permanent” Sunday lay in Steve Stricker, but surely they’ve been given dozens in return, ie the entire field when Lorena Ochoa is playing. What a great golfing icon she is turning out to be, just what the women’s circuit needed. Eat your heart out, Michelle Wie. It’s just a shame media coverage of the women’s circuit is so meagre.