The Barclays 2014 tee times, pairings for Saturday’s third round at Ridgewood

The group outside the top 100 in the FedEx Cup standings will have a a little more elbow room on the weekend after the field was cut down to 79 golfers at the 2014 Barclays. The bottom 25 of the 125 in the playoffs do not get to make the trip to Boston next week for the Deutsche Bank Championship, and if you started the week in that group and then MC’d at Ridgewood, your 2014 postseason only lasted two rounds. But players farther down the board, like Paul Casey and Bo Van Pelt, have put themselves in excellent position to be in that smaller group that plays their way onto the other side of the top 100 and on to the Boston.

That playoffs points race is the concurrent bit of drama on top of the instant tournament, which is co-led by defending champion Adam Scott. The Aussie came from behind on Sunday last year at Liberty National, quietly posting a low number and then watching all the leaders behind him, including a grimacing Tiger Woods, crumble and come back.

Things have been quieter again for Scott recently. Rory McIlroy overtook his No. 1 ranking in the world status at Firestone at the beginning of August. This is just his fourth event since the U.S. Open in mid-June, and while he’s still playing good golf and putting himself inside the top 10, he hasn’t really made a run at a win. His form is too good and talent too great for him not to make a run during the playoff events, so it’s not surprising to see him move to the top of the board here. He did most of his damage on on the front nine of Friday’s second round, making four straight birdies at one point to set up the 6-under round of 65. That number was good enough for the co-lead at 8-under and he’ll go out with Cameron Tringale in the day’s final pairing at 1:55 p.m. ET.

Most of the top names in the postseason are among the final 79 players for the last 36 holes. Phil Mickelson was probably the biggest name grinding to make the cut, but he got through on the number and will be in one of the earliest tee times of the day at 7:45 a.m. ET. That means he’ll almost certainly be done with his round when Golf Channel goes live, so if he’s hitting balls out of the grandstand and dodging beer bottles again, we’ll have to rely on replay.

Here’s the full tee sheet for Saturday’s third round at Ridgewood: