The Barclays, Nick Watney Wins
Nick Watney/Cox/Getty Images
Nick Watney won The Barclays tournament at Bethpage Black course in Farmingdale New York in some style with a score of -10 under par for the event. He won by three shots from fellow American Brandt Snedeker, who had a -1 under par last round to finish with a score of -7 under par.
Nick commented after his win about the extra putting coaching he received, which stopped him from leaning back on his heels;
“I made more putts than I made all year, it paid off. With the way things were going, I don’t know if anybody would have expected this, this week. But you know, Bill Haas proved last year that if you make it to Atlanta, you have a chance. The way they have the FedExCup formatted, it’s pretty neat. You need to be in Atlanta. So I wanted to have a good week. And to be No. 1 now is amazing. It’s been not quite the year I would have wanted, but this really makes it all forgotten. I’m thinking about the Ryder Cup, much more now than I was coming in, because coming in here, I didn’t deserve to be in the conversation, because I had not played my way in. Someone told me that Davis said he wanted a hot player, and we still have a week to go, but I’d love to be on the team. But I’m not really concerned with it just because it’s out of my control.”
The biggest surprise of the day was the way Sergio Garcia went from a commanding leading position to scrambling to finish in a tie for third place. Sergio sunk like a soggy souffle on Sunday afternoon, with five bogeys on the back nine, not the type of performance we were all looking towards, especially European Ryder Cup Captain Jose Maria Olazabal. Equally concerning for American Ryder Cup captain, Davis Love 111, was the collapse of Tiger Woods, who finished the tournament at +1 over par.
Sergio is a fan of both Nick and Brandt and thinks Davis should consider both players for the Ryder Cup;
” I’m not, obviously, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, but I think both Nick and Brandt, they both played great. They have been playing very nicely. Obviously Nick has had a little bit of a slower year this year, but you know, as a player, I hope they make the team, and then we’ll see what happens there.”
Brandt is also thinking of the Ryder Cup;
“The golf course was the winner this week, it was so tough to play the last two days. The greens were just as firm as I can remember on the Tour, the fairways were as firm as I can remember on Tour. It was a great test of how mentally strong you could stay on the course over the last 36 holes, because you knew you were just going to get some bad breaks no, way around it. Nick obviously played great today, to shoot under par today. The Ryder Cup’s definitely on my mind. But I’m not letting it affect the way I play. I try to win every golf tournament. The Ryder Cup gives me more motivation, and if I do that, I know I will make the decision easy for them. Davis has an extremely difficult choice with a bunch of guys. You can’t go wrong with any of them.”
