COMMENTARY

The Barclays at Plainfield Country Club is not even two hours old and the leaderboard is a mish-mosh of guys most average fans probably haven't heard of. Currently in the pack of eight guys at the top, there's a guy who sounds like a baseball stadium in L.A. (Chez Reavie), a guy who looks like he should be in a baseball stadium (Tommy "Two Gloves" Gainey), an overweight guy who smokes (Tim Herron) and a guy who looks like Jeff Spicoli's older brother (Charley Hoffman).

Seems they like New Jersey just fine right about now.

Or do they?

Thursday morning, Golf Channel senior writer and columnist Jason Sobel sought out to write about what things PGA Tour players liked and didn't like about the great Garden State. He expected to get pros like italian food and cons like traffic. Instead, he got something different.

In the column, one unnamed PGA Tour player let loose a f-bomb tirade about New Jersey.

'Ey yo! indeed.

Kris Blanks — No. 65 on the FedEx Cup points list — said that his favorite thing about New Jersey was "I only have to be here for a week.”

Ouch.

Ever since moving across the Hudson River from Westchester Country Club in New York in 2008, the PGA Tour has fallen in love with New Jersey. This year at Plainfield is the fourth consecutive year that the state has hosted the first leg of the playoffs — and done so at three different courses: Ridgewood, Liberty National and now, Plainfield.

Next year (and in 2016), the event will go to Bethpage State Park's vaunted Black Course — site of two U.S. Opens — filling out the Barclays rotation. But after that, it's another three years in Jersey. The tour loves the types of classic courses that the state has to offer, even at one point considering Essex County Country Club in West Orange as part of the course rotation.

Hoo boy, can you imagine the players navigating Essex County roads? If they thought Bergen, Hudson and now Union/Middlesex country driving was tough. ...

But it's not all sour tomatoes. Phil Mickelson — a member at Liberty National and major-championship winner at Baltusrol — told Golf Channel that he loves being here.

"I couldn't think of a better spot to play," he said. "Plainfield to me is what I consider really a great golf course. It's playable for the average player while still creating challenge for the good players to score low. I think that the setup is terrific and we are going to have a great week."

So, at least we have one guy in our corner.

But it still stings to hear named and unnamed PGA Tour players diss our fine state. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. Are our driving manners impeccable? Even the senior citizens have road rage. But come on, Jersey isn't that bad ... is it?

FedEx Cup points leader Nick Watney — a Sacramento-area native — was asked what his favorite and least favorite things about New Jersey were in the media room were on Wednesday.

"My favorite would be the pizza," he said. No qualms there, our pizza does rock.

More coverage:

• Complete coverage of The Barclays on NJ.com

And the least favorite?

"My least favorite would be the earthquakes."

Earthquakes? Earthquakes!! Come on, Nick! You're from California where earthquakes are like death and taxes. Of course, the only significant earthquake to happen in the area in the last gazillion years happens the week that the PGA Tour is in town.

Just add it to the list of things that some of the PGA Tour players don't like about our fair state. That's fine. We don't care. We're the home of Bruce Springsteen, Tony Soprano and Jimmy Hoffa. (At least we think.) If you don't want to be here, so be it.

But when you cross that bridge into Long Island next year, don't say we didn't warn you.

For more golf coverage, follow Brendan Prunty on Twitter at twitter.com/BrendanPrunty

Brendan Prunty: bprunty@starledger.com