During the first round of the inaugural Fed-Ex Cup Playoffs, Rory Sabbatini of South Africa shot an 8-under 63 to lead the Barclays. K.J. Choi continued his great play finishing the day in a tie for second with Rich Beem at 64.

"I’ve never been a golfer that goes into it, looking at, hey, I’m playing for this position or this much money or anything like that. I’ve never been in it for the money. I’m a competitor. I want to win any time I tee the ball up. That’s how I am," said Rory Sabbatini

When asked what Sabbatini thought of the players that chose to skip this event (read: Tiger Woods) he said, "it’s a disappointment because, you know, obviously the whole purpose of this new system was to try and create an atmosphere that would draw everybody to the final four events of the year. Obviously it’s kind of backfired in the sense by Tiger skipping the first event.
It leaves a lot of questions and a lot of interesting questions to what they need to do, to, I don’t know, maybe change it so that you definitely have the incentive to play all four. Whether it be you play three, you only get 75 percent of the 10 million or you play two, you get 50 percent; make it something where you want the ten million, you’ve got to play for it"

 Rich Beem finds himself in just the position he had hoped for. He qualified into the playoffs at 134th. Without good play this week, Beem will find himself watching the rest on tv like the rest of us. The winner of The Barclays will take home $1.27 million and 9,000 of the available 50,000 available Fed-Ex points.

"I think the general public still doesn’t really understand what the Playoffs are all about, Said Rich Beem. "But I tell you what, there’s a lot of guys in this tournament who know what the Playoffs are all about, the guys No. 121 through whatever it is, we all know what the Playoffs are all about. If I don’t play well this week, I have to take a vacation which I don’t really want to take. I want to play well this week and I want to play in Boston and I want to play in Chicago. Chicago is my favorite tour stop and I have to play well to get in, and I have to play well to get in next week, so it has my attention. Last week was where a lot of guys kind of sat there and said, "Oh, I guess I’d better start playing better. I’ve got to get in the Playoffs."

"It’s got the players attention and that’s a good thing, it’s got mine."