Playing golf on Labor Day weekend is as American as Bruce Springsteen rocking "Born in the USA" on the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. It's like eating a hot dog at a baseball game right after standing for the national anthem. If you didn't hit the links this weekend, here's hoping you had a good excuse, because I played and shot my first under-par round of my life.

On a putt-putt course.

Go ahead and shrug that off like it wasn't a seminal moment in any man's golfing career. You see, my 18 holes on the mini-golf course went as quickly as a normal round would on a holiday weekend. When you play with two kids, your fiance, and two of her sister's, pace of play can become a pretty serious issue. We let two groups play through and a few others simply passed us instead of waiting.

So, I'm going to keep that scorecard and put it with my stack of good rounds that I've had over the years. The fact that I aced the last hole and won my niece and nephew a free round was just icing on the cake.

After such a career landmark in my golf career, it was nice to come home Monday in time to see Webb Simpson and Chez Reavie battle it out in a playoff for the Deutsche Bank Championship. Simpson edged Reavie in the second playoff hole and won his second tournament in three weeks. Reavie won a moral victory, though, climbing 78 spots from 87th to 9th in the standings. Simpson is coming on strong at just the right time and currently leads the FedEx Cup standings over Dustin Johnson by 897 points.

As long as he doesn't fall apart at the BMW this weekend in Lemont, IL, he'll be in prime position to win this whole playoff. I didn't give him much of a chance going into the playoffs, but it's pretty clear now Simpson is here to stay and we'll be talking about him being in contention quite a bit.

FedEx Cup Standings
1. Simpson... 4,711
2. Johnson... -897
3. Matt Kuchar... -1587
4. Luke Donald... -1836
5. Brandt Snedeker... -1842
6. Jason Day... -2354
7. Nick Watney... -2420
8. Steve Stricker... -2506
9. Reavie... -2623
10. Phil Mickelson... -2671

Full Standings

I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but so far, my picks are looking good. I don't get to say that often with a straight face, and while I'm on a high from my putt-putt glory, let's just have a look:
1. Stricker (8th, -2506)
2.  Mickelson (10th, -2671)
3. Donald (4th, -1836)
4. Watney (7th, -2420)
5. KJ Choi (15th, -2940)