With Lefty's win last week he is now sitting in the #1 position with 108,613 points. Steve Stricker is second with 106,200 and lurking in 3rd is Tiger with 103,733 ... the BMW will be a great tournament! There are a lot of GOOD players that are sitting below the 30th spot and they will really have to make some movement this week to keep in the hunt.

The winner of the FedExCup will be the player who has accumulated the most points throughout the Playoffs, not necessarily the winner of THE TOUR Championship. Each week, every player needs to finish as high as possible - not simply to stay in the field for the next event, but to have a chance to win the FedExCup.

What does this mean ... a trophy crafted by Tiffany's and $10 million to the winner and another $25 million going to the rest of the placings.

Yea, it is a big thing!

But a hybrid is a versatile club that can be used in many different situations besides just replacing your long iron shots. You can use them from the tee, the fairway, the rough, the fringe and even from bunkers. Learning to hit a hybrid well can save a lot of strokes off your round of golf.

From the bunker, it is the same shot your would normally take except you change your ball position to be about an inch back of your normal position. This adjustment will prevent you from topping or hittting the ball fat. Keep your feet planted and your weight centered in order to steepen your swing and ensure first ball contact. BUT, don't try this if you have a high lip on the bunker.

There are a lot of times out on the golf course that we don't want to fly the ball, but we do want to get the ball on the ground quickly and then let it run. You have more control over the ball when it is on the ground than when you fly high in the air and guess what it will do when it lands. With a hybrid, the ball starts rolling quickly, making it easy to gauge distance. With this said, you need to choke down on the club and hold it like you would your putter. The entire plan is to make a putting stroke which makes a square hit with limited wrist movement. This technique will make judging the speed and distance a lot easier.

Things I've learned this summer ... why is golf always a learning process? Maybe that's why we keep coming back to the course time after time after time.

After Woods won at the WGC - Bridgestone he should be considered a big favorite to win this week but ... Graeme Storm from England set the course on fire today and shot a 65, to be followed by Grip It and Rip It, John Daly, with a 67. Tiger is tied for 23rd place with a 71.

Tomorrow it is suppose to be 102 which can really take a toll on the body during an 18 hole round of golf. Will Daly make it or will the wheels fall off? Will Tiger move his way up the leaderboard? What about Lefty, moving up or still sitting in the starter box? And there is a lengthy list of younger players who are in the fray this week after round one, so we can really just sit back and watch.

I'm putting my money on the one who can handle the heat to take the lead. It will be the player who can maintain his course management, keep mentally alert and manage their energy level who will excel in round two. With the heat index that players will face tomorrow, these will be big factors.

I'll be watching ....

What does playing a links course mean? It allows the players to find a natural style or playing technique for hitting bumps and runs and to keep the ball low in the wind. Players have usually figured out that they need to take more club and they definitely have to be shot shapers and makers.

Links golf is a totally different kind of golf. Playing well at Carnoustie means you have a lot of natural ability and the knowledge to play completely different shots from what we use on our pristine, immaculately green American golf courses. Most of the tour players who don't like this course have probably had some problems reworking their game to make these changes.

It is always a challenge and a wonderful experience if they just immerse themselves in the natural beauty of these courses that are on oceanside sand dunes that were formed by a receding sea and covered with fertile soil from a river estuary. It is beautiful when you remember the beginnings of the game of golf.

Golf in some form, not what we play today, goes back to Carnoustie in 1527. Later there was a 10-hole course fixed upon the links between 1839 and 1842 and around 1867 it finally developed into 18 holes. The course you see today is virtually the same as it was laid out in 1926 to have tougher finishing holes and more yardage -- and yet manages to withstand the test of time.

As we watch the Open this year, I hope we will all view the course as the home of our passion for a game that can delight, thrill and humble us ... every time we step out on a course to play.

Being on the beach is not fun and especially if it is one around the green. These shots can run your score up in a hurry because you have to get it out of the sand, make it pop straight up too to clear the lip, and then keep it close to the hole for a makeable putt.

We don't have to fear these shots; just make some adjustments and it is up, out and just a short putt.

What are these adjustments?

1. Open the clubface wide (about 30 degrees)
2. Take a wide stance for stability and play the ball inside the heel of your front foot
3. Squat down a little at address
4. Make a 3/4 backswing, swing into the sand about an inch behind the ball
5. Take a full turn against a stable body
6. Face the target at the finish

With a little practice, these shots will become much easier and lower your score.

Practice makes perfect and it also makes for lower scores.

Hit 'em straight and long!

P.S. ... how will fatherhood affect Tiger? Let us know what you think.

You take your club back and realize that you have lost your grip and then scramble to regrip which causes the clubhead to get out of alignment and when you strike the ball, nobody knows where it is going!

Most of the time we lose our grips at the top of the swing and even though we should not grip a club too tightly, I have a some pointers for maintaining control of the club.

1. Wrap the last three fingers of you left hand fairly firmly around the club's butt end.
2. Apply some slight pressure with your left thumb as you place the lifeline of the right palm upon it.
3. Apply some pressure from your right index finger as it pushes against the shaft, sealing your grip.

One of the first things I remember somebody telling me when I first started trying to learn the game of golf, which is a never ending process, was to place two or three blades of grass between the fleshy heel of the left hand then put the rest over the left thumb, extended down the shaft, to be trapped by the fleshy part of your right hand as you place it over the left.

Try this using a wedge and hit some shots to make sure your hands are in the same place when you complete the swing as they were at address. This means you did not lose the blades of grass during your swing. This will help with hands-on control.

I still do this when the wheels fall off on my golf swing and most of the time it is where my hands are that are causing the problem.

I had said from day one it would be Tiger Woods or Jim Furyk, but Sunday's outcome just shows that "on any given day, any player can win."

Cabrera toughed it out on probably one of the hardest courses possible and faltered a time or two but continued through his 18 holes and posted his score.

Tiger and Furyk knew what they needed to do...birdie, birdie to force a playoff or birdie, birdie, birdie to win.

Tiger's magic wand, his putter, sputtered and he came up one stroke short of the victory. Jim Furyk is the runner up again.

I wonder if Angel Cabrera had a special blanket to cover up the trophy when he went to bed that night...do you think he stared at that trophy all night long?

There is a large group of players with a score of 1 over par. Bubba Watson, Fred Funk, Jim Furyk, Geoff Ogilvy, Justin Rose, Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods are in this group which makes them tied for 5th.

The good thing about all of this ... they are only 3 strokes off of the first place score.

Tiger had problems getting off the box into the fairway (9 out of 14), along with his putter letting him down a little. He was the favorite coming into the tournament and nothing that happened today has changed that idea yet.

The #2 player in the world managed a 74 even with the wrist brace that kept coming off and then going back on. Phil Mickelson scrambled through and finished a complete 18 holes for the first time in three weeks. He's still not out of the running, but he just hasn't been able to prepare for this tournament to really give Tiger a run for his money.

There are maybe 9 players who can win the Open this year. Honorable mention goes to Jim Furyk, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Zach Johnson and Vijay Singh. These guys are contenders ... but it really comes down to Phil and Tiger.

My money will be on Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk.

Bob Estes and Justin Leonard finished with 5 over to be in the group tied for 77th position.

Happy 51st Birthday to Fred Funk ...and did you see Ian Poulter's outfit today ... get me my sunglasses!

I am big on keeping things simple on the golf course.

Golf is a hard game, and when you make it more complicated by thinking too much and trying to do too much, you only make it more difficult.

I've had a horrible time putting this year, so I decided to break it down to the "KISS" principle and fix it.

To do this I started with a couple of basics which are now what I am focusing on each time I make a trip to the golf course. I had to make myself stop thinking about par, birdie or bogey and the horrible 3-putts, since that only made things worse.

Instead, I decided to concentrate on making a repeatable and consistent putting stroke - straight back and straight forward just like a pendulum, and to keep it smooth.

The other point I concentrated on was the speed of the putt. I've tried this for about 10 days worth of practice, and this past weekend it paid off big-time.

The scoring just started taking care of itself when I only thought about those two things. That allowed me to enjoy my round of golf a whole lot more than being frustrated with my performance.

Yes, I know I have to be able to read the greens and recognize the slope and undulations and see the line, but I know that if I can just get that first putt close to the hole, then I should be able to get a par, which will lower my scores by doing away with bogeys and 3-putts.

Since the majority of our scoring is based on what we do on the green, it is a good thing to work on this aspect of our games.

And it did lower my score!