The Barclays 2012: Nick Watney Wins By 3 Shots

Tiger Woods’ final round of the 2012 Barclays championship Sunday didn’t exactly go as he had hoped. In fact, it was pretty much the exact opposite of how he needed to play if he had any chance of mounting a comeback for the victory.

Despite beginning the day at 4-under par and still somewhat in contention, Woods recorded a 76 in his final round; the worst performance he has had the entire 2012 PGA Tour season. He would leave the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in Long Island, NY 1-over par for the tournament and no longer the FedEx Cup points leader.

After winning The Barclays on Sunday, Nick Watney is projected to move up 48 spots in the FedEx Cup standings to claim the No. 1 overall spot. Watney added 2,500 points to his total score with the victory, which will give him 3,226 for the year.

Brandt Snedeker continues to play well on the Tour, and will move into second place this week. He added 1,500 points after placing second at The Barclays, giving him 2,694 in total. Tiger Woods will likely drop to third place in the FedEx Cup. Woods did not play well over the weekend, and will get just 148 points for his efforts, bumping his total to 2,417.

The PGA Tour’s money list is still led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, but Nick Watney jumped up 36 spots to No. 19 with his win at The Barclays.

Watney took in a $1.44 million payday with the win, aiding his rise in what was an average season for him coming into the event. Second-place finisher Brandt Snedker moved up eight spots to No. 11 with his haul. Dustin Johnson moved up nine spots to No. 21 after finishing tied for third with Sergio Garcia, who moved up six spots to No. 29.

With an $8 million dollar purse available at The Barclays, Nick Watney raked in $1.44 million after his come-from-behind win over Sergio Garcia.

Watney finished 10-under par after a final round of 69, to win his first tournament of the season. Garcia lost the lead to Watney in the final round, and with the lead went $976,000 as Garcia finished tied for third with Dustin Johnson. Both men left with $464,000.

Nick Watney pulled out a come-from-behind victory in the final round of The Barclays, winning by three strokes over Brandt Snedeker as Sergio Garcia fell to a tie for third place.

Watney came into the final round trailing Garcia, but was able to fight back and build a three-shot lead. As Watney stayed the course, Garcia fell behind with a final round 75. Snedeker shot a 70 in his final round to take sole possession of second at seven-under. Garcia tied with Dustin Johnson for third at six-under.

The final pairing is now on the course at Bethpage Black for the final round of The Barclays, and at 9-under, Sergio Garcia holds a one-shot lead over playing partner Nick Watney. Garcia opened the day with a bogey at the first hole to drop a shot and Watney followed that up with a birdie on the second to square things up. The precocious Spaniard did, however, manage a par at the par-3 third hole, which he has bogeyed each of the first three rounds and had given him trouble throughout his career. Garcia was in good spirits after the par, facetiously pumping his fist and joking with his caddie about the par.

Sergio did miss an excellent opportunity at the fifth hole as his birdie putt danced on the the lip of the cup but did not drop. In a scenario where he would typically walk off the green with exasperation, Garcia once again departed to the next tee with a smile. He’d re-take the lead just moments later when Watney missed a short par putt to drop back to 8-under. If Sergio can keep his attitude and putter correct, he could very well walk away with the win for the second straight week.

Sergio Garcia is the leader entering the final round at The Barclays 2012 tournament, but the early story on Sunday is the play of Australian Jason Day. Day is 4-under through nine holes of his final round, carding two birdies and an eagle in his last four holes.

Despite the morning surge, Day still stands 10 shots back of the leader Garcia. Garcia’s co-leader entering Saturday’s action, Nick Watney, sits in second place at 8-under par for the tournament. Kevin Stadler, who shot a sizzling 6-under round of 65 in the third round, is third on the leaderboard at 7-under par for the tournament,.

After three rounds at The Barclays, Sergio Garcia of Spain is the tournament leader following his third straight round with a score under 70, the only one in the tournament to do so. At 10-under par, he has a two stroke lead over thte American, Nick Watney. A slew of golfers are just behind.

Among those in the chase is Tiger Woods, who had his worst round of the tournament on Saturday, finishing one-over for the day. The score dropped him to a tie for tenth on the leaderboard and put him six strokes off the lead.

After shooting a 5-over 76 at Bethpage Black -- putting him at 2-over for the tournament -- Ian Poulter just needed to vent. He likes to vent.

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As the final pairing makes the turn during their third round, American Nick Watney has taken sole possession of the lead on Saturday at The Barclays. Watney came out of the gate hot with the putter, picking up birdies on three of the first five holes to take a two-shot lead over playing partner Sergio Garcia. Watney did make his first bogey of the day on the sixth at Bethpage to fall back but he made the turn with a birdie on No. 9 to move back to 11-under.

The young star finished atop the regular season FedEx Cup standings last year but he’s had a rough summer, tumbling from his perch as one of the best American golfers in the world to nearly off the radar for Ryder Cup contention. While it’s unlikely that a red-hot playoffs surge would change Davis Love III’s mind, a strong end to the season could get Watney back on track for next year.

The leaders are now on the course for the third round of the 2012 Barclays at Bethpage Black. Playing in the fifth-to-last group is Tiger Woods, and the FedEx Cup points leader has dropped a shot early on Saturday. Woods played through a stiff back on Friday, and while not as severe, those problems still appear to be bothering him during the third round. Woods bogeyed the par-3 third hole to fall back to fall to 4-under, five shots behind leaders Sergio Garcia and Nick Watney.

Both Garcia and Watney wasted little time posting a red number, as the mid-point leaders each birdied the first hole to move to 9-under. The morning wave certainly made up some ground on the afternoon groups by taking advantage of the gettable Black Course, so the final groups will need to stay under par on Saturday to hold their lead.

The third round of The Barclays is underway at Bethpage Black, and the bottom half of the leaderboard is looking to make a charge on moving day to stay alive in the FedEx Cup.

Kevin Stadler has set the pace so far, carding birdies on five of the first eight holes to move a whopping 37 spots up the leaderboard. He is just two shots back of leaders Nick Watney and Sergio Garcia. Stadler, son of The Walrus, has had his moments on Tour over the past few years, but he has yet to capture a win on the American Tour. His blistering start has fans and pundits on “30 watch” as he approaches the turn. At 6-under, he’s now in contention with 27 holes to play.

Confident of a spot at the season-ending Tour Championship, Sergio Garcia said he would skip next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship to rest up for the FedEx Cup finale at East Lake as well as the Ryder Cup in late September.

“With the schedules that are coming, I have to think that I have a chance at getting to the Tour Championship, so having to play six weeks in a row and then one week off and then the Tour Championship and the Ryder Cup is just too much,” Garcia said in a statement from The Barclays event Friday night. “Everybody knows how important the Ryder Cup is for me, and I want to be fully fit there. I want to be feeling strong so I can help my team.”

Although tournament leaders Sergio Garcia and Nick Watney are not set to tee off until 1:45 p.m. ET, some players have been making early moves on Saturday morning.

Leading the charge is David Hearn, who began Saturday at 1-over par. Hearn made four birdies and no bogeys on the front nine, launching himself into a tie for 16th at 3-under for the tournament.

Tiger Woods got off to a dreadful start after staring Friday’s second round with a bad back. Despite grimacing and gingerly bending like someone more than twice his age, however, the two-time FedEx Cup champion played his way into contention at The Barclays.

“It’s the lower back,” Woods told reporters after posting a 2-under 69 to get to 5-under for the week -- just three strokes behind 36-hole leaders Nick Watney and Sergio Garcia. “Must have slept funny on it. Soft beds at the hotel, woke up this morning with it stiff. As I warmed up, it got progressively worse and you saw what happened on the golf course.

With the field now cut in half, the third round of the 2012 Barclays tees off Saturday morning at Bethpage Black. The extremely tough Long Island layout has played a little more benign this week as compared to the typically brutish USGA conditions. That could create a wild moving day on Saturday as the game’s best look to capture the first leg in the FedEx Cup and build momentum towards the $10 million prize at the end.

Golf Channel will carry the coverage on Saturday afternoon beginning at 1 p.m. ET and running up to 2:30 p.m. ET. The tournament will go off the air for the typical half-hour hand off to CBS, which will finish Saturday’s coverage from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

Despite suffering an apparent knee and lower back injury following an awkward swing, Tiger Woods finished his day on Friday 2-under par to bolster his scorecard to 5-under par at The Barclays. While the injury happened to Woods while he was 1-under, he still recorded a birdie on hole 14 and held par on every other hole.

The solid second round from Woods puts him three strokes behind Sergio Garcia and Nick Watney, who are tied for the tournament lead after the first two rounds. The tournament leader after Thursday, Padraig Harrington, finished Friday four-over and dropped to the No. 16 spot on the leaderboard.

Sergio Garcia made a charge during the afternoon to tie Nick Watney atop of the leaderboard in the 2012 Barclays. Garcia finished at 3-under on the round and 8-under going into the weekend. Garcia birdied the second, fifth, and sixth holes on the front nine to make up for a bogey on the third, then managed another birdie on the 13th to finish his round.

Trailing Watney and Garcia by one stroke are Vijay Singh, Bob Estes and Gary Christian. Singh finished his round early and was the clubhouse leader before being passed by Garcia and Watney. Bob Estes managed a 5-under round of 66, as he put up six birdies and one bogey.

Tiger Woods and Fred Couples are good friends but when the 36-year-old Woods says he feels like the 52-year-old captain of last year’s Presidents Cup, who withdrew from this week’s Champions Tour event with a bad back, that’s bad news for the PGA Tour. Woods, who tweaked his own back early on the front nine of his second round at The Barclays, jokingly told his caddie Joe LaCava that “I feel like Freddy today,” according to the Golf Channel.

We imagine when the organizers of the three remaining FedEx Cup events heard that, their winces were even more pronounced than those that Woods projects each time he swings his driver or bends down to pluck his golf ball out of a hole.

With the blossoming bromance between Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods taking center stage this week at The Barclays, it may be easy for the casual fan to forget all about the world’s second-best golfer, Luke Donald.

As Golf Channel’s primary on-air analyst, though, Nick Faldo ought to know who’s who in the Official World Golf Rankings.

Tiger Woods’ quest to win his third career FedEx Cup championship may have just taken a very painful turn south.

During his second round of The Barclays on Friday, Woods made an awkward swing off the teebox and immediately grimaced. He then doubled over in pain and clutched his left knee, which golf fans will remember was the same knee he had surgically repaired after tearing his ACL and breaking his left leg prior to the 2008 U.S. Open.

Vijay Singh has tied Padraig Harrington for the overall lead at the 2012 Barclays championship after completing the second day with a 4-under par to bring his combined score to a 7-under. Singh record three birdies through the front-nine to pull within one shot of the lead and managed to tack on the tying stroke on the final hole.

Harrington has yet to start his second round and is scheduled to begin at 12:22 p.m., ET.

The second round of the 2012 Barclays championship is under way and many of the morning groups are moving up the leaderboard. PGA Tour veteran Vijay Singh has the round of the day to this point, as he is 3-under par through 14 holes in his second round and only a shot back from the leaders.

Singh, 6-under par overall, also played well at the PGA Championship earlier this month before ultimately falling off the pace to eventual winner Rory McIlory. The 49-year old Fijian has not won a tournament on Tour since the 2008 Deutsche Bank Championship, where his margin of victory was a staggering five shots over Mike Weir.