Kuchar wins playoff to take Barclays

PARAMUS, N.J. - Winning just one PGA Tour event is a rare honor and an immense pain. As Matt Kuchar said Sunday, sitting alongside a huge crystal trophy at The Barclays, "You feel like you are the best player in the world for this week."

But, man, it can be tough getting there. Kuchar went seven years between his first and second victories and it took all of his 32 years until Sunday for him to win a real big one, the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs at Ridgewood Country Club. Heck, Tiger Woods has gone all year without a win, although he was upbeat about his 7-under-par tie for 12th here.

Kuchar really can sympathize with Martin Laird, who was only 23 feet away from feeling like the best player in the world this week but failed to two-putt from that distance, bogeyed the 18th hole and lost a playoff to Kuchar on that same hole.

A golfer has to be good, tough and a little lucky, as Kuchar was when he made what probably was the shot of his life from the left rough in the playoff. He drilled a 7-iron 192 yards, bouncing it off the right collar as if it were a backboard, and watched it roll within 2½ feet. He made the birdie, beating Laird's par 4.

"You know, you've got to smile," said Laird, a 27-year-old Scot who won the Justin Timberlake Shriners event in Las Vegas last year. "You can't do anything about that. He had a great shot."

The odd and frustrating part for Laird was that he had made every decent-length important putt he needed all day, including a 7-footer on the par-5 17th hole that gave him a one-shot lead. When his second shot on No. 18 in regulation settled nicely on the back fringe, Kuchar stopped practicing for a potential playoff. "I went over and was just a spectator, thinking 'he's got this wrapped up,' " Kuchar said.

But Laird knocked the 23-foot downhill putt 7 feet past. He summoned the 11-footer he had made in Las Vegas just to reach a playoff. "I said to myself, 'You've done this before, you can do it again,' " he said.

It's not that easy. Ask Kuchar, who had seemed poised to win many tournaments back when he had top-25 finishes at the Masters and U.S. Open as a Georgia Tech sophomore. He did win the Honda Classic in 2002, then fell into a drought.

"I love the game. I love practicing. I love everything about it. I love having chances. And even when the chances don't go your way, I think it makes you tougher, makes you stronger," he said. "If you don't get beaten up by it, if you keep on stepping forward, all those close calls, they're going to make you better for opportunities in the future."

Kuchar expects to get a call or text message from his former Georgia Tech buddy, Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. Kuchar's family went to the Stadium to see him during the U.S. Open at Bethpage last year and stays in touch.

"He just had another baby. I'm real happy for him," the champion said. "He's a great player, he has really found a home here and I think New York loves him. I just wish he could figure out a way to start his season better."

That was a reference to Teixeira's notoriously slow Aprils. Then again, both men know that it's not how you start, it's how you finish.