Who to Watch: PGA Championship

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Chez Reavie is right on the bubble of the top 30.
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Aug. 6, 2008

• Last week, twenty-five of the top 30 in the FedExCup standings were in the field; this week, all of them except Tiger Woods are teeing it up.

• Of the players who finished in the top 10 at last year's PGA Championship, only Woody Austin is among the top 30 "hottest" golfers over the past 8 weeks, having earned over 3,000 points in 4 tournaments in that stretch. He's also "on the bubble" for a top 30 seed, currently in 30th position, 328 points ahead of Chez Reavie in 31st. Reavie is competing in his first PGA Championship.

• Four of the top 5 contenders in the field - Kenny Perry (second), Stewart Cink (fourth), Anthony Kim (fifth) and Vijay Singh (sixth) are among the five hottest golfers over the last eight weeks, each having won at least once with at least one other solid finish in that stretch. Only Phil Mickelson (third) isn't as hot, although his T4 at the World Golf Championships -- Bridgestone Invitational last week might be a good sign.

Robert Allenby (11th) and Jim Furyk (13th) are the highest-ranked players not to have won yet this year, now that Singh picked up his first victory last week at Bridgestone. Furyk has won in each of the last three years and nine of the last 10. Allenby hasn't won since 2001, but is having one of his best years ever, with a second, a third and five other top 10s to his credit this year. Both are among the leaders in quality finishes (i.e., earning more than 350 points), with eigh for Furyk and 10 for Allenby. Only Vijay Singh has as many quality finishes as Allenby.

• All but one of the 28 winners on the PGA TOUR this year are in the field (Tiger Woods). Eleven of the 27 are under 30, and six of those 10 have multiple career PGA TOUR victories, led by PLAYERS Champion Sergio Garcia (18th) with 7 and Adam Scott (21st) with 6.

• Last week, a number of players outside the top 30 in the FedExCup standings had a solid tournament at the Bridgestone Invitational, including Chris DiMarco (137th) who finished T12 to move into the top 144 from 163rd. Lee Westwood (43rd) plays a limited schedule on the PGA TOUR, but picked up 45 spots with his T2. Retief Goosen (56th) moved up 19 spots with a T4, and Peter Lonard (55th) finished T6 to move up 16 spots in the standings. Each of these players will be in the PGA Championship field, with a chance to move up even more.

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