subject: The performance of Steve Stricker [print this page] Last week in the Barclays, following a solid start of 70-70, on the weekend Stricker turned it on and shot 68-66 to finish in a tie for third, two strokes out of the playoff where Matt Kuchar defeated Martin Laird. That allowed him to keep second in the FedEx Cup rankigs behind Kuchar. Stricker has used good outcomes in the Deutsche Bank Championship to make himself to high finishes in the standings in three years the PGA Tour playoffs have been in existence. He began with an 8-under-par 63 Last year and later shot 65-67 on the weekend to get the victory by one stroke overtaking Scott Verplank as well as Jason Dufner making birdies on the last two holes. That helped him finish third in the rankings. In 2008, he tied for 13th also at the TPC of Boston, when he wound up 14th in the standings, and tied for ninth in the second playoff event, on his way to a second-place closing. He missed the cut also three continuous times from 2005 in Boston before he tried for seventh the coming year. Last week at Ridgewood, Strick carded only four bogeys, tied for the fewest in the 72 golf players who made the cut, and only needed a couple more birdies to get the chance into the playoff. In each of the first two rounds, he had only two birdies but made five each day on the weekend. Steady as well as straight as usual he hit in the neighborhood of 70% of the fairways and greens in addition to averaging 28.5 putts one round.
