The four-over score leaves Fred in 116th place – just three shots out of last place. Fred will likely need to shoot between 66 and 68 to make the cut, which is important in the playoffs in order to pickup the larger points in the FedEx Cup.

Tomorrow Fred will go off on the back nine at 12:21 PM Eastern. View photos from The Barclays here.

Ridgewood Country Club was designed by A.W. Tillinghast and opened in 1929. Tillinghast did other New York area courses like Winged Foot and Bethpage Black. It hosted the 2001 Senior PGA Championship. This is the first time the course has hosted a PGA Tour event since 1981.

The FedEx Cup’s first of four events at the Barclays brings the top 144 players from the regular season for the opening round. Twenty-four players will be cut after the first tournament heading into the second event to be held at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston, leaving 120 players still in the FedEx Cup.

Fred finds himself currently ranked 89th in the playoffs, meaning he is likely to make the second round of the playoffs. In order to make the third round of the playoffs at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Fred will need to get inside the top 70 of FedEx Cup points.

TV this week:
Thu, 8/21: Golf Channel 2-6
Fri, 8/22: Golf Channel 2-6
Sat, 8/23: CBS 3-6
Sun, 8/24: CBS 3-6

Official site: TheBarclaysGolf.com | Tickets

PGA Tour site: The Barclays @ PGATour.com

Defending Champion: Steve Stricker (-16)

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Following a difficult first round on thursday, with 34 putts and a�poor�driving accuracy off the tee, Fred came back on track today, by making 5 birdies and 3 bogeys, en route to a second round 69 (-2) and a tie of 55th place.

Fans�waited a long time�on friday to see if Fred would make the cut. In fact, Fred was�still at +2 for the tournament through 16 holes. At the par-4 17th, Couples stuck his approach to 3 feet and converted�to stand right�on the cut line. Finally, at the par-5 18th, Couples failed to reach the green in two, but made his up and down for an easy birdie four.

Eight shots off the lead with two more rounds to go, Fred has a realistic chance of finishing in the top 10. By shooting a cumulative around -8 on the weekend, the man could easily put himself in position to receive a big paycheck. But most important of all, he could earn some very precious Ryder Cup points, since the rankings on the US side are very tight.

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While fans were quite confident that the man would bounce back after a first round of 73 (+1), it appears that Couples simply gave up after some poor play on the front side. Fred fan tmfaherty reports:

#8 was an important hole for him, though he really seemed not to care, and decided to blast his tee shot over the trees and cut the corner; it worked almost too well, because he was about a yard from going all the way to the water but got caught in the rough. The next shot was within 140, but he pushed it into the rough and was pretty pissed at himself (at least as much as Freddie will ever show). He pretty much gave up, not even taking a practice shot on his chip and not caring that he barely got it halfway to the hole on a fairly basic chip. Then he blew his par 5 feet past the hole- and next without reading the putt at all (because he didnt care) blew that one 10 feet by, and just walked up to his ball, putted it again right away and had to tap in for a 4-putt triple. Here he was 8-over for the tourney and seemed emotionally detached from the golf.

What happened for the next few holes was completely unexpected, but somehow he turned it on without trying. His tee-shot on 9 was in the right rough under a tree, so he just walked up and used a half-swing to punch it out but not advance it as he easily could have. This is when I walked off in disgust to get a hot-dog and figured i would meet him on the next green. There, I saw he had apparently birdied from 200 yds uphill on the previous hole, and proceeded to birdie once again. Now he was at 6-over, but still didnt care because he decided to hit driver at a hole where everyone always lays up due to a stream in the middle of the fairway (he always laid up also every other time he has played there in the past). Luckily he bombed it over (barely) and birdied again. At +5, he now had the toughest hole on the course in front of him, and his 5-wood from 220 out of the rough put him 60 yards below the grren in the rough, where he wouyld bogey.

Back to plus 6, with 6 to play (needing 3 to make the cut as it was projected at the time, and as it ended up), he went par-bird-par-bird, but he birdie putts within 15 feet on all 4 holes. Now just 1 back of the cut line, it really looked like he might regret screwing around on 8. #17 of course is where the run ended, although it could easily have been much different. He drove it into the rough pretty close to being blocked by a tree 80 yards in front of the green. Here, Fred hit a great shot- lofting it over the tree and landing about 12-15 feet from the pin. At this point, it seemed as though he would miraculously make the cut with a makeable bird putt here, and an easy par-5 next (and the cut looked as though it could move up to 4-0ver, what freddie was at on 17). But he blew it past by 5 feet, and then got frusterated and didnt really focus on the next one either. He missed again, and then rushed over to hit his 2-footer and lipped it out (although he was already back to not caring anyway), so he ended up with another 4 putt and a double bogey.

18 is a fairly short par-5 with eagle not out of the question (although it would only have gotten him back to plus-4 and miss anyway). But his driver from the deck from about 260 missed clearing the traps by about a yard (otherwise he was right on it) and got up-and-down for the bird to end at 5-over.

His swing didnt look good at all at the start. At the driving range prior to the round, he was pulling alot of shots and hooking them (very uncharacteristic of Fred), and it showed for the first 8 holes. Even so, with his charge he still had a shot, but it was his detached mentality and the fact that he had given up that really cost him. I have never really seen that from the care-free Freddie in the past, so i dont really know why it happened today. (…) Hopefully Fred can turn it around it time for the British Open.