The Barclays: A preview and best bets for the opening FedEx Cup play-off event

The FedEx Cup play-offs are now an established part of the golfing calender and, after several tweaks to the scoring, viewers are now more receptive to the swings of fortune which can happen over the four events.

You probably know the score by now but, as a reminder, for this week's opener - The Barclays at at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey - the leading 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings following Sunday's Wyndham Championship are qualified to tee-up.

From herein, the size of the fields will be reduced in successive weeks from 100 to 70 and finally to 30 for the series-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Live PGA Tour Golf

Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus is being used for a third time, having also staged the series-opening Barclays-sponsored event in 2008 and 2010.

Both those events went to play-offs, Matt Kuchar prevailing against Martin Laird in 2010 and Vijay Singh ousting Sergio Garcia and Kevin Sutherland in 2008.

Sky Sports will have live coverage of all 16 rounds of the play-offs.

On the red button, PGA Tour Match Centre on iPad and on the Sky Sports website, you can watch continuous coverage of a featured group on all four days. On Thursday it's Ogilvy, Els, Blixt at 6.17pm.

The course

This A.W. Tillinghast design is actually a composite of the East, Center and West Courses at Ridgewood. It all adds up to a par 71 which meaures in at 7,319 yards. The fairways are framed by mighty oak trees while there are plenty of bunkers surrounding greens with plenty of subtle breaks. The New York City skyline is often visible from the long par four 12th.

Winning scores

It's a tough track so scoring can be high here, with -8 the play-off number in 2008. It was -12 in 2010.

Top course performers

A number of players in the field this week managed a top 25 in both previous Barclays (2008 and 2010):

Kevin Streelman (4th, 3rd)
Paul Casey (7th, 12th)
Rory Sabbatini (24th, 5th)
Angel Cabrera (19th, 15th)

Others who have recorded a top 10 on this course are: Sergio Garcia (2nd, 2008), Matt Kuchar (1st, 2010), Jason Day (5th 2010), Ryan Palmer (5th, 2010), Justin Leonard (8th, 2010), Vijay Singh (1st, 2008), Adam Scott (9th, 2010).

Key tee-times (UK)

From 1st tee

1253 Phil Mickelson, Justin Hicks, Will MacKenzie
1304 Gary Woodland, Charles Howell III, Jason Day
1711 Henrik Stenson, Billy Horschel, Brendon de Jonge
1744 Justin Rose (Eng), Harris English, Ryan Moore
1806 Jim Furyk, Matt Kuchar, Sergio Garcia

From 10th tee

1304 Adam Scott, Martin Kaymer, Rickie Fowler
1327 Rory McIlroy (Nirl), Jimmy Walker, Bubba Watson

Conclusion

Any suggestion that the top players use this first event to get their eye in or pace themselves for the four big play-off events can pretty much be discounted when looking at the list of Barclays winners since it became the tournament that kicked off the FedEx Cup final series in 2007. 

The winners are Steve Stricker, Vijay Singh, Heath Slocum, Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney and Adam Scott (2013). Six of that seven have played in either a Ryder Cup or a Presidents Cup.

Therefore, one very appropriate winner would be five-time major champ Phil Mickelson.

After a season of disappointment the left-hander came to life in the recent US PGA Championship and had a great run at the title before being pipped by Rory McIlroy.

In Wednesday's press conference, Mickelson revea