Hurricane Irene is expected to hit New Jersey late Saturday, and tournament organizers at the Barclays are watching the radar closely.

"We’re keeping an eye on the situation and looking at numerous options,” said Slugger White, vice president of rules and competitions for the PGA Tour. “But there won’t be a decision made on changing or moving tee times until Friday when we have a better idea of what the storm will do."

According to NJ.com, the options for playing all 72 holes are shaping up like this:

- A 36-hole final on Saturday.
- Playing Saturday's third round and as much of the fourth round as possible and finishing up on Monday.
- Playing a full third round on Saturday and then getting in as much play as possible on Sunday, if the storm were to stall and finish on either Monday or Tuesday.
- Finishing on Monday and/or Tuesday depending on the weather and the condition of the golf course.

EDISON, N.J. -- The pros were hitting balls on the range and playing practice rounds at Plainfield Country Club on Tuesday afternoon when tents swayed and the ground shook for about 15 seconds due to the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia.

The club, about 300 miles from the quake's epicenter, is the site of this week's Barclays, the first FedEx Cup playoff tournament.

Hunter Mahan and John Wood, his caddie, both felt the ground move on the practice range. "It wasn't hard, but it was definitely noticeable," Wood said.

Heath Slocum, who won the Barclays in 2009, was hitting chip shots on the range when the earthquake happened. As the ground rumbled under his feet, he told Ping tour manager Matt Rollins, "I feel like I'm going to pass out." Rollins told Slocum he felt the same sensation, and then the two realized what was happening.

On the practice green, Charles Howell was hitting putts off a mirrored training aid. The trembling caused the balls on the mirror to slide off.

One after another, the players on the range looked around, and then started Tweeting.

Beyond giving players and fans something unique to talk about, the earthquake will have no effect on the Barclays, which is scheduled to begin Thursday morning. No signs fells, no tree limbs came down and within moments it was business as usual on the range.

Lucky Shot

Really cool story out of Philly this weekend, where Sean O'Hair met Chris Logan, a local man who might be O'Hair's biggest fan after the PGA Tour pro beaned him at the AT&T National last year. According to Joe Juliano at Philly.com, it was the shot of O'Hair's (and Logan's) life.

But he had his day cut short when a tee shot from Sean O'Hair, one of his favorite players, struck him in the left temple at the 18th hole.

As emergency medical technicians hustled him to a nearby tent to be examined, Logan had no idea this would be the luckiest day of his life.

While checking him out for a concussion, a doctor inquired about a lump just below his throat and urged him to visit his family doctor to get it checked out. The lump turned out to be a malignant tumor on his thyroid. He underwent two surgeries less than six weeks after being struck by the ball...

There were a lot of "what-ifs." What if Logan had not decided to go to the tournament? What if he had continued to follow the leaders on the back nine instead of going back to watch O'Hair play his final hole? What if he, a former caddie at Overbrook Golf Club, had done a better job of following the flight of the ball and gotten out of the way?

"I don't want to say I haven't thought about it, but..." said Logan, his voice starting to crack. "I guess fate would be the word I would use. I'm not sure how much more in depth I can go. But if there wasn't fate working that day, I'd be lying to myself. We could have stayed home. I could have stayed up around the [18th] green and just watched Sean putt."

If you've got some time, read the whole story, it's one of those great combinations of sad, funny, shocking and heartwarming, especially because O'Hair and Logan are actually from the same PA town.

New York State of Mind?

After a few years bumming around some of the nicest private courses in New Jersey, it sounds as if the Barclays is ready to make it's triumphant return to the Empire State. Brendan Prunty of the Star-Ledger looks into the rumored new location for the first leg of the FedEx Cup, two-time U.S. Open venue, Bethpage Black.

Traditionally held at Westchester Country Club, the PGA Tour and the club parted ways after the inaugural FedEx Cup Playoffs — of which The Barclays is the first event...

When the tour split with Westchester in the winter of 2007, part of the agreement was that the PGA Tour would return once to the club before 2012. But while it was assumed that would be The Barclays, that turned out not to be the case. Early last winter, it was announced that Westchester would host the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship — one of the majors for the Champions Tour, formerly the Senior PGA Tour.

That opened the door for Bethpage Black to swoop in a pick up two future dates in The Barclays rotation [in 2012 and 2016].

Rumored to have been on the outs with the USGA after hosting two U.S. Opens in a seven-year span, the brawny public golf course in Farmingdale had been searching for a big-time replacement event.

On one hand, I hate to see a tournament leave the great state of New Jersey (even though it will be back at Liberty National in 2013), but it's nice to see Bethpage getting some love from the PGA Tour. I'm still holding out hope that the Open will someday return to Bethpage Black so that it can redeem itself with a seamless (read: dry) major, but in the meantime, a FedEx Cup event is nothing to sneeze at for the world's best muni.

YouTube Video of the Day

Inspired by the PGA Tour's Golf Boys, a group of Ladies European Tour players have put together a tribute music video of their own. I'll let the footage speak for itself, but it should go without saying that the Golf Boys showed considerably more skin than their female counterparts.

Golf Magazine's Alan Bastable live blogged the second round of the Barclays.

Leaderboard | Photos: Round 2 | Course Profile | TV Schedule

6:00 p.m. That's it for me. Enjoy the weekend, though something tells me Tiger won't.

5:55 p.m. Wild occurrence at 16, where Senden knocked a relatively simple greenside bunker shot through the green and into a bush. One unplayable lie, a pitch shot and a couple of putts later, he had made a double-bogey 6. Senden drops to 6-under. Day is the solo leader at 8-under.  

5:50 p.m. Ernie made the cut!

5:48 p.m. Michelle Wie made a hole-in-one yesterday at the Canadian Women's Open. Here's a depressing sidebar: It was her eighth, and she hasn't even finished college. How many do you have?

5:40 p.m. With his stellar play in 2009, Steve Stricker seemed a near-lock to win a major. Today? Questionable. He's at 3-under for the week.

5:35 p.m. Before the Golf Channel switched to the Barclays, I caught a little of the U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay. The USGA has taken a lot of heat for setting up the Washington muni at 7,700-plus yards, but I must say it looks GREAT on TV -- water views, native grasses, a freight train rumbling through. Looking forward to seeing the big boys play it when the Open visits in 2015.

Golf Magazine's Mike Walker live blogged the first round of the Barclays.

Leaderboard | Photos: Round 1 | Course Profile | TV Schedule

6:00 p.m. Time to call it a day at the Live Blog. Golf Magazine's Alan Bastable will be here with you at 3 p.m. tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

5:56 p.m. Cynical reader Shoshana wonders: Chances that there's a "delay" tomorrow so that Tiger's tee time is closer to when the TV coverage starts?

And impugn the integrity of the storied FedEx Cup playoffs?!?! How dare you, Shoshana? Considering how long it takes players to get through a round these days, Woods' 12:10 p.m. tee time means we'll see a lot of him on the Golf Channel tomorrow.

5:54 p.m. Mickelson misses another birdie chance between 5 and 15 feet on 17 and stays 1-over, proving that the Golf.com Live Blog has the smartest, most insightful readers in the game. The host is another story.

No. 18, Par 4, 470 yards

Tiger puts an exclamation point on his round of the year so far with a birdie on 18 to finish with a 6-under 65.

That's it for now. We'll be back at 3 p.m. for the Golf.com Barclays Live Blog. See you then.

No. 17, Par 5, 594 yards

Tiger makes par. His 5-under total has him tied for the lead with Ryan Palmer and Brian Gay.

Elin Impostor?

An Elin Nordegren look-alike -- who clearly isn't her -- has been following Tiger's group at the Barclays all morning and getting a lot of attention from the galleries.

Hole 16, Par 4, 422 yards
Tiger hits another 3-wood that splits the fairway. His approach just clears the right-front bunker, and he rolls his putt from the fringe about 18 inches past the hole. "I'll take care of that," Woods says and taps in another par.

Phil Mickelson said the PGA Tour rule that disqualified Jim Furyk from the Barclays tournament for missing is pro-am is “ridiculous.” 

“Well, the rule itself applies to only half the field,” Mickelson said Wednesday at the Barclays tournament in Paramus, N.J. “So if you're going to have a rule that does not apply to everybody, because not everybody played the pro-am, you cannot have it affect the competition.”

Mickelson said that the Tour should find another penalty for missing a pro-am.

“It can't be disqualification if it only applies to half the field,” Mickelson said. “So this rule -- it's not protecting the players. It's not protecting the sponsors. It applies to only half the field and yet it affects the integrity of the competition.”

The rule has been in place since 2004 and Mickelson said he has voiced his displeasure with it in the past.

“I cannot disagree with it more,” Mickelson said. “I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through. It's ridiculous. I made my viewpoint very clear to him, yes.”

In fact, Mickelson said he suggested a rule change where a player can opt-out of one or two pro-ams each year in exchange for stopping by the hospitality tent or attending a dinner. He said he was only 1-for-22 on his suggestions for pro-ams, but that one was adopted

“I thought that that also included if you missed your tee time you were able to make it up by going to the hospitality tent Thursday or Friday, which is why I was so shocked that [Furyk] ended up being DQ'd because I thought that was included in that rule change,” Mickelson said. “That was my one.”

Mickelson was at the center of a similar controversy in 2007 when he missed a pro-am at the Byron Nelson because bad weather prevented him from flying to Texas the night before. The Tour excused Mickelson’s absence, but many players thought Mickelson ought to have been disqualified from the tournament.

On Wednesday at Ridgewood, Tiger Woods mostly answered questions about his divorce, but a few golf questions snuck into the conversation as well.

Woods, who parted ways with swing coach Hank Haney in May, stirred speculation at the PGA Championship when he was seen working with Sean Foley, a teacher whose clients include Hunter Mahan and Sean O'Hair. Woods said he and Foley have continued to spend time on the range.

"I worked with Sean two times at home," Woods said. "We worked on the same stuff that we worked on at the PGA. And it's just a matter of getting it more solidified."

Asked if he'd decided to change his swing, Woods said nothing was certain yet.

"I still haven't officially done it yet," Woods said. "Just because this would be the fourth time I changed my golf swing since I've been on the PGA Tour, and I did some with Butch and with Hank and this would be my fourth one with Sean. So it's an undertaking that I have to wrap my head around because it's going to take some time."

Photo: Woods and Foley on the range at the PGA Championship. John Biever/SI

DQ'd and PO'd
The big story this morning is Jim Furyk getting bounced from the Barclays, the PGA's first FedExCup Playoff event, for sleeping through his alarm and missing his pro-am tee time. This is a pretty well-known rule, and it's very closely enforced--I distinctly remember when John Daly was disqualified for the same infraction at Bay Hill (which, in a bizarre turn of events, also got two other Tour players ejected from the tournament). So at least everyone's held up to the same standards, right? Waggleroom's Ryan Ballengee isn't so sure.

The PGA Tour has announced that Jim Furyk - currently sitting in third position in the FedExCup standings - has been disqualified from this week's first round of the Playoffs at The Barclays for missing his 7:30 pro-am tee time by five minutes. The disqualification is the set penalty for tardiness for these pro-am outings...

While I completely understand keeping non-members out of the Playoffs, this seems a bit unjust. Furyk will be impacted for four weeks because of this disqualification and his alarm clock not working. On a regular event, the penalty seems more appropriate - it has just a week's worth of impact (though longer for a guy who is on the verge of certain money list thresholds).

For a Playoff event - a major-lite Tour stop - to have a pro-am seems a little out of whack, but acceptable. To cause a guy to have such a severe penalty in his quest for $10 million, though, seems unconscionable.

Phil Mickelson missed his pro-am tee time for the Byron Nelson Championship in 2007 due to poor weather blocking his plane from making it from Alabama to Dallas-Ft. Worth's Love Field the night prior. Mickelson took his time getting to Las Colinas in time for the pro-am, but was not disqualified by Tour officials. That set off an uproar of anger about the exemption.

Somehow I had completely forgotten about that Phil exception (and how peeved a lot of Tour pros were about it). Unfortunately, I think this is a case where two wrongs don't make a right: the Tour was outrageously foolish to allow Phil to play in that tourney in 2007, and they'd be just as out of line letting Furyk play this week, because, as Dustin Johnson will tell you, a rule is a rule is a rule. That said, this rule is stupid, and they should figure out a way to change it...fast. The Tour relies on pro-ams for support, so I understand why they're so sensitive about players taking their responsibilities seriously, but there are options short of DQs that can keep the players in line. How about a fine, somewhere between $10,000-$100,000, or, even better, a percentage of their earnings from the tournament (so the better they do, the more they lose)? That way if players don't show they'll be plenty hurt, but they'll have the opportunity to earn their keep come the weekend. Still, Furyk might want to consider investing in a travel alarm clock.

Welcome back, Tiger
As a proud son (and current resident) of the Garden State, I take a lot pride in our most prized resources: overflowing cranberry bogs, copious lower-back tattoos and, of course, renowned championship golf courses. The PGA Tour returns to the jewel of Bergen County this week, Ridgewood C.C., and the local media has rolled out the welcome mat to all of the Tour's stars. Well, almost all of them...

Tiger Woods is back in New Jersey — which means certain people should be alerted. Women, in general. Perkins’ waitresses, strippers and porn stars, in particular. And, of course, given the condition of his golf game, any fans at the Barclays Classic standing near a tree along a fairway.

Woods is officially single now, with the price of his freedom — or was it Elin’s? — a reported $100 million. And while that, along with his struggle to right his career, might have the crowd at Ridgewood Country Club abuzz, forgive us if we’re not excited about his appearance in Paramus. After all, the guy has treated the state like it’s one big waste bunker.

When he was playing in the PGA Championship at Baltusrol in 2005, Woods was upset when a local golf pro accidentally parked in his reserved spot. Then at the height of his superstardom, he played most of his practice rounds at dawn, before fans were allowed on the course. When caddie Steve Williams committed an infraction during the first round of the tournament, Woods refused to disqualify himself.

He signed only a handful of autographs that week — when Phil Mickelson won the tournament and the hearts of New Jersey fans — and when his Sunday round was over, Woods high-tailed it out of town. Even though there was a chance he could have been in a Monday playoff, he couldn’t get out of New Jersey fast enough.

Last year, when the Barclays was played at Liberty National, Woods criticized the greens and called the course “interesting” — which is PGA-speak for “What a dump.” Again, autographs, or any interaction with fans, were rare.

And now, he’s back in the Garden State. Oh, joy.

It should be pointed out that the Star-Ledger, while a relatively well-respected journal, may hold a bit of a grudge against Mr. Woods. It was their reporter who tattled on Stevie Williams, saying the caddie stepped on Tiger's ball in the 2005 PGA Championship, an accusation that Woods and Co. vehemently denied. That having been said, there's no doubt that New Jersey is Mickelson territory at the moment, as is the entire Tri-State area. This week will be a good test for the "New Tiger" we've been hearing so much about. If he can keep a smile on his face, keep nodding his head and keep signing his name, he may win back the favor of some of the most boisterous fans in golf. Oh, and shooting under par wouldn't hurt.

Nothing Amateur About Chambers Bay
With all the attention the Barclay's is getting this week, the always fun U.S. Amateur is getting (typically) overlooked. While the tournament itself is great, there's some added excitement this year as it's being held at Chambers Bay, site of the 2015 U.S. Open. Here's a take on the course setup from Golfweek's Sean Martin, who sees danger for the amateurs this week...and the pros in the years to come.

Ten feet. That’s often the difference between a great shot and a bad one at Chambers Bay.

NCAA champ Scott Langley hit 4-iron to Chambers Bay’s par-3 15th hole during Tuesday’s second round of stroke play at the U.S. Amateur. The left-hander pulled it 10 feet right of his target, then watched his ball bound through the green and into a bunker. Had Langley hit his mark, his ball would’ve funneled down a slope and likely ended up close to the hole.

“It’s like playing golf in my driveway,” Langley joked about the firm conditions at Chambers Bay...

Chambers Bay’s fast, firm conditions, and extreme putting surfaces, are driving players wild at the U.S. Amateur. The conditions are exacerbated by the course’s extreme undulations and lack of rough, which can cause balls to bound more than 50 yards away from a player’s target.

Most players are paying the young course compliments, but some are leaving with a bad taste in their mouth. This is an important week for Chambers Bay, the three-year-old links-style course along the Puget Sound. This year’s U.S. Amateur, the first national championship here, is a dress rehearsal for the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.

The scoring average for the 156 players who played Chambers Bay on Monday was 79.87. Three players broke par at Chambers on Monday, with Augusta State’s Patrick Reed leading with 68. Seventy-nine players shot 80 or higher Monday at Chambers Bay. That’s more than 50 percent. Five shot in the 90s, including two 95s.

Martin is quick to point out that, while certainly tough, he's not ready to call the conditions unfair. So far it sounds like the players aren't doing too much complaining either (at least not outwardly), but I think we can all agree that amateurs tend to be a little less ornery than Tour pros when it comes to course conditions. Still, I'm excited about the possibility of a U.S. Open course that really fights back. It's not like Pebble and Bethpage Black are pushovers, but relying on weather and deep rough is old hat at the Open--fairways and greens so hard you can bounce a stone off them? Rough so thin it couldn't stop a feather? Now we're talking U.S. Open golf. Is it 2015 yet?

Talk about a tough boss.

Jim Furyk was disqualified from the Barclays tournament at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., after he overslept and missed his 7:30 a.m. pro-am tee time Wednesday. The PGA Tour said the disqualification was normal under the circumstances. 

“It’s a standard rule, but it’s not something that happens a lot,” a Tour official said.

Furyk said he set his alarm on his cell phone and that his phone lost power overnight. He arrived at the course at 7:35 a.m. with no chance of reaching his pro-am group for the 7:30 a.m. shotgun start.

"I'm kicking myself," Furyk told the Associated Press. "I have a way of climbing into situations that are all my fault."

Furyk, who rushed to the course so quickly that he showed up without his socks or belt, said it was the second time he had been late for a pro-am. The PGA Tour adopted its disqualification policy for missing pro-ams in 2004.

“A long, long time ago I got there a little late at Bay Hill," Furyk said. "The alternate filled in for me for two holes and then I just stepped in and played the rest of the way. In seventeen years, twice.”

PGA Tour Rules official Slugger White said that Tour officials were looking for Furyk Wednesday morning for a half-hour before his tee time.

"I was with his caddie Mike Cowan (Fluff), and he asked me if I had seen him and I said ‘No, we are looking for him,’" White said. "I asked [Cowan] if he had seen him and if he had tried to call him and he said, ‘I have tried to call him but the phone won’t ring. I tried and it wouldn’t ring through.' When things like that happen sometimes you think the worst. Thank goodness that wasn’t what it was."

White said that he kept looking for Furyk and trying to call him until he saw Furyk by the Ridgewood clubhouse.

"He said, 'Disqualified?' and I said, ‘Yes, I’m sorry,'" White said. "He said he woke up at 7:23 and he got here in 12 minutes. His starting tee was No. 11 and that was about 7:36 a.m. or so when I talked to him we had already sent the alternate out. It was Marc Leishman."

White called the disqualification "unfortunate."

"Knowing Jim as I do and we all do, he handled it extremely professionally and put all of the blame on himself," White said. " He is a really good guy, but my hands are tied. I am sure he will recover quite nicely next week and jump right in there again."

Furyk said he was disappointed to miss the first event of the FedEx Cup, especially since he is third in FedEx Cup points, behind only Steve Stricker and leader Ernie Els.

“What is the worst part of it? There are a lot of worst parts," Furyk said. "It is a great golf course. I was looking forward to the event. I’m third in [FedExCup] points, so to possibly severely hurt a good year, it depends on how I play the rest of the way, but to hurt a good year after putting myself in that position. I played my heart out all year, so to then limit myself to one less event than the rest of the field…”

Still, Furyk didn't complain about the Tour's decision.

"The rules are the rules," he said.

Although Furyk will miss his chance to compete for the $1.35 million first-place prize this week at the Barclays. he is not in danger of missing the next event of the FedEx Cup playoffs. His third-place standing in FedEx Cup points means he will advance to the next event, the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass. The top 100 players after this week move on to the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second round of the $10 million FedEx Cup playoffs.

*UPDATE: The PGA Tour amended its statement to say that Furyk was "ineligible" for the Barclays due to missing the pro-am, not "disqualified."

(Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images)