Monday Morning Reviews

Brian Hewitt found drama in the first round of the playoffs, Rick Carpiniello loved the Barclay's but says the playoff excitement wasn't there yet and Gary Van Sickle found plenty of playoff-like drama...on his local NBC affiliate carrying the U.S. Amateur:

So here's the verdict on the FedEx Cup playoffs: The needle hasn't even moved yet. It's still on zero. It's been stuck on zero all year long as the race to the FedEx Cup never materialized, which is not a surprise since 144 players made the field. That's the whole all-exempt top 125 and another 19 bottom-feeders. No excitement there. The fact that Tiger Woods elected to skip the first of four tournaments didn't help either. Woods dropped to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings, by the way. I'm sure he's pretty worried. He really needs that $10 million in a deferred annuity to avoid ending up in a homeless shelter as an old man.

Give CBS credit for trying to paint a picture of the FedEx Cup race and make it exciting with graphics that showed how players' scores were affecting their projected position in the points standings. It just didn't work. And those graphics and assumptions quickly became annoying, especially early on the back nine during Saturday's round, when imagining where any player would finish was wistful, at best. What if Rory Sabbatini misses this putt and finishes fourth in the tournament? Who cares? What if Emma Peel traveled back in time to help the Mohawks fight off a Martian invasion?