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The PGA Tour comes to New Jersey this week without Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy in the field, with Phil Mickelson struggling and with star power in the game a bit dimmed.
Don’t fret, though.
If we learned anything from last week’s PGA Championship — other than who Keegan Bradley is and the fact that he played his college golf at St. John’s — it’s that we don’t need the game’s flashiest stars dueling down the stretch to create fascinating tournament theater.
Bradley and Jason Dufner were two little-known names to the casual observer before they provided a finish for the ages last Sunday in the final round of the PGA at Atlantic Athletic Club — with Bradley winning in a dramatic three-hole playoff.
More drama likely lies ahead in the FedExCup series of PGA Tour playoffs, beginning Thursday with the start of The Barclays Championship at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, N.J.
There are plenty of elements that make this week’s Barclays Championship a compelling watch for golf fans — beginning with the golf course, which will play host to a PGA Tour event for the first time.
Plainfield, a marvelous Donald Ross designed course, opened in 1921 and has played host to the 1978 U.S. Amateur and the 1987 U.S. Women’s Open. Based on the old-school design, which so few PGA Tour events are played on these days, Plainfield likely will be very popular with the players.
Several players, including Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, have played a practice round on the course in recent months to familiarize themselves with it.
“It’s a fun setup,” Fowler said. “It’s an old-style golf course. You’ve got some greens that definitely have some pitch and undulation. There’s an interesting finishing hole, where if they put the tees up [it] makes it drivable.”
The 18th hole will be a heavy topic of conversation during the tournament. It was a poor finishing hole — an uninteresting dog-leg left up a steep hill to the green — until architect Gil Hanse did some recent redesign work. Hanse cleaned out the trees and scrub to the left of the teeing area to tempt big hitters to try driving the green.
Fowler said he played the forward tee and drove the green.
“It’s a little uphill,” he said. “It’s a smooth driver. It’s a good finishing hole. It’ll be interesting to see what guys do there. I think they’re hoping the tournament comes down to that hole. If it is drivable every day, I think that’s awesome.”
It’s likely the players will play the forward tees for at least two of the four rounds, which surely will make for some drama-filled moments.
Because most players will be seeing Plainfield for the first time, it will be interesting to see how they handle it, becsause most venues on the tour are repeat visits.
“This is an old fashioned golf course where you have to be below the hole,” defending champion Matt Kuchar (who won at Ridgefield Country Club last year) said after touring the course last month. “It looks like these greens can get pretty treacherous. It looks like it could be a little bit of a U.S. Open setup where the rough could be an issue.”
Aside from the course, the players will provide the drama.
Can Mickelson, who did not win a major this year, regain his form? Who will emerge as the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year, which surely will be decided by the playoffs?
Bradley, who also won the Byron Nelson Invitational to go with his PGA victory, is a front-runner along with Nick Watney, who has two PGA Tour wins, and Charl Schwartzel, who won the Masters.
Will one of these players star or will it be someone we don’t expect? What about Dufner, who promised after his PGA Championship playoff loss that he would bounce back, but he missed the Wyndham cut last week?
In the moments immediately following his disappointing loss to Bradley, Dufner insisted that there was “a lot to be gained” from his PGA experience, saying, “I’ll get over it. The show goes on.”
Indeed it does.
mcannizzaro@nypost.com
