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(Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
Vijay Singh has won 34 times on the PGA Tour, including three majors and the FedEx Cup in 2008, but since hoisting the FedEx Cup at East Lake in the Tour Championship, the Fijian has gone winless.
Sixty-five starts without a victory, likely due to a bad right knee, that Singh had arthroscopic surgery on in January of 2009, but the byproduct of the injury was a sore back which left the limber Singh without the ability to practice and eventually play the game that earned him over $65 million in earnings on the PGA Tour.
With the knee injury a distant memory, Singh went to visit the same doctor Fred Couples raved about in Germany the week before the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club and received Orthokine Therapy.
(Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)
Like Couples, Singh found almost immediate relief for his back and now just three weeks later, the 48-year-old Singh is contending at The Barclays.
“I’m playing well here, because I’m feeling good,” Singh said after a second round 64 that included eight birdies. “I can be more aggressive and not really worry about how I’m going to wake up the next morning, and if I can play or not. So I’ve been struggling with this for two years, so it’s the first time I feel really comfortable to go out and there.”
Singh as well as the other 122 players in the field this week were informed that the event would be shortened to 54-holes due to the expected arrival of Hurricane Irene on Saturday evening.
That knowledge forced Singh to try to play a little harder knowing he would only have one round left after Friday.
“I was eight shots back, and so you play a lot more aggressive than you normally would,” Singh said of his position at the beginning of the round. “And that’s what I tried to do, limit my mistakes as much as possible.”
(Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
If Singh can win, he would move into the top position in the FedEx Cup points, a position he is familiar with having won The Barclays in 2008 and then following it up and winning the Deutsche Bank Championship the next week to solidify his number one position in the playoffs.
“Well, you’ve got to be careful because it’s yielding a lot of birdies and if somebody gets a good round going,” Singh said of the situation in the final round. “You can shoot very low, so you just have to go out there, play each hole, and play hard. There are leaderboards all around the golf course, so we’ll be aware of what’s going on.”
Stuart Hall is editor of the Golf Press Association.
