A Day With the Leaders at The Barclays

Although you wouldn’t know it based on the size of the gallery surrounding the first tee box, the leaders teed off at 1 o'clock this afternoon.  

Granted, Hurricane Danny was forecast to hit the area on Saturday afternoon, not to mention cyclone Woods and typhoon Mickelson were already out on the course gathering up 90 percent of all spectators who walked through the gates.

In a field that contains the top 125 players on the PGA Tour, Paul Goydos, Steve Marino, and Webb Simpson were an unlikely final pairing.

But all three continued playing solid golf for most of the day. Marino and Goydos will spend another afternoon together walking around the New Jersey landfill in Sunday's final pairing.

Goydos got out to a hot start with birdies at the third and fourth to go to eight under par.

After Goydos sunk his 16 foot birdie putt on the fourth, he had a long look over at the leaderboard where Tiger Woods' name suddenly appeared at three under par.

But Goydos wasn’t rattled. He striped his tee shot right down the middle of the fairway at the fifth, stuck his approach shot to around four feet and calmly sunk his birdie putt to go to nine under par for the tournament.

After putting out on the sixth hole, Goydos, Marino and Simpson had to walk the absurd path to the sixth tee box which took them across the back of the 16th green where Vaughn Taylor was trying to line up his putt. 

The group finally made it to over to the 6th tee box where they then had to alternate tee shots with Nick Watney, Tim Clark and D.A. Points, who were all teeing off less than 20 yards away on the eighth hole.

That in a nutshell sums up the quirkiness of Liberty National.

As Goydos, Marino and Simpson were walking down the seventh fairway, Tiger Woods was coming up the adjacent 15th.

Needless to say, the masses you’d expect to be surrounding the leaders were heading in the opposite direction.

A man running with his young son yells out, “those are the leaders over there.” He then scooped up his son with one arm so he could move a little quicker to a better viewing point for Woods’ second shot.

Two other men briefly glanced over at Goydos, Marino and Simpson. One man told his buddy that those were the leaders; his buddy quickly asked “which one is Goydos?” and then immediately turned his attention back to Woods before his friend even had a chance to answer.

As the group made their way to the seventh green, a wife says to her husband, “Goydos is nine-under-par? That can’t be right; Woods is only at two-under.”

Such is life on the PGA Tour for the ‘other’ guys.

Goydos would bogey the seventh but go on to birdie the eighth for a three-under-par 33 on the front nine.

Simpson pulled even with Goydos at eight under par for around five minutes before hitting his tee shot into the water on the par-three 11th, which ultimately led to a triple-bogey six.

Goydos slowed down on the inward nine while Marino caught fire.

Marino birdied the 14th, 15th and 16th to pull even with Goydos at nine under par for the tournament.

By this point, the size of the gallery had grown considerably, albeit it was 4:30 pm and Woods and Mickelson had been done with their rounds for over an hour.

Goydos and Marino each parred the 17th and 18th holes and are currently tied atop the leaderboard after 54 holes.

Goydos and Marino couldn’t even escape Woods’ shadow in the interview room.

“Can you comment on Tiger saying the tees being moved up 350 yards shorter than it has been?", "Tiger is five shots back going into the final round, will you find yourself looking over your shoulder a little bit more considering he’s there?” and “Tiger said you played the ladies tees today” (in reference to the tee boxes being moved up considerably today due to the weather forecast) were amongst the questions/statements directed towards Goydos and Marino following their rounds.

Goydos, who has two PGA Tour wins to his name, has sarcastically said in the past that he likes to win once per decade.

Goydos’ last win came at the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii, so a win tomorrow would actually be his second of this decade.

Marino’s last win came at the Gateway Tour Championship in 2006 which earned him $60,000.  A win tomorrow will earn him a mere $1,290,000 more than his last professional victory.

Can Goydos or Marino get it done tomorrow afternoon?

We shall see. 

But, one thing is for certain; a win tomorrow would be huge for either Goydos, who has had a tough year off the course with the passing of his ex-wife, or Marino who has been in search of his first PGA Tour victory for three years now.