For a group of players near the top of the leaderboard, there sure is a lot of complaining about the golf course.
Leading the whining wagon is Bubba Watson, who shot a 2-under 68 on Friday and leads The Barclays by one shot with a 36-hole total of 7-under. But the greens at Plainfield Country Club have irked him, and he’s not exactly holding back his thoughts.
“These greens are built for like a nine on the Stimpmeter,” Watson said, referring to the tool that judges the speed of the greens. “Not a 12 or 13 on some of these holes, like they are right now.”
That sentiment was echoed by Henrik Stenson, who shot a 4-under 66 and is one back of Watson.
“When these greens were designed back in the day, they were playing a speed that was totally different to now,” said Stenson, the 2013 FedEx Cup champ. “On some of them, I think it’s just hard to find four pin positions.”
“It’s an old-style golf course,” Stenson added, “a lot of angles off the tee and a lot of sloping greens. So, yeah, it’s a tricked-up golf course.”
Watson also has been adamant about how much he dislikes all the blind shots, which a lot of people would say is an integral part of the game — and especially so when Donald Ross designed this strategic gem in the 1910s. Watson dislikes them so much he hit a wayward driver off a hospitality tent on No. 9 on Friday just so he could see the green surface with his second.
“If I lay up, or hit it where most guys are hitting it, down in the fairway, you can’t see the hole,” Watson said. “You’re talking, again, one of the handful of the toughest greens we’ve ever played.”
Jason Day shot a second consecutive 2-under 68, and after having to pull out of Wednesday’s pro-am with a back injury, he said that his back was still “a little tight.”
“I’m just trying to manage the recovery and rest, as well, but I’m not complaining,” Day said. “I can still swing at the ball pretty hard and still hit the shots that I need to hit.”
Australian Adam Scott missed the cut with rounds of 71 and 73, and will be out of the playoffs after the first tournament for the first time in his career. The 2013 Masters winner went through some changes in his life this year, including the birth of his first child, a daughter named Bo Vera, in February.
“There’s been a lot of fiddling with lots of different things — caddies, equipment, new family,” Scott said. “Everything has time to fall back into place and refocus and come up with a better plan.”
Billy Horschel, the defending FedEx Cup champion, shot rounds of 76 and 77 and missed the cut, finishing second to last. He was projected to drop from 55 to 45 in this year’s standings.