E-Notebook: PODS Championship

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• There's a good field assembled at the PODS Championship this week with five of the Top 10 and 21 of the Top 30 players in the current FedExCup standings on hand.

Verplank

• Scott Verplank will be back in action this week looking to extend his TOUR-best streak of consecutive rounds of par or better. Verplank enters the week with 27 in a row. Tiger Woods holds the record of 52 set during the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

• You might look for an international winner this week at the PODS Championship. Five of the previous seven winners have hailed from outside the U.S. K.J. Choi of Korea (twice), Retief Goosen of South Africa, Vijay Singh of Fiji and Carl Pettersson of Sweden.

• Mark Calcavecchia opened last year's PODS Championship with a 75 before going on to victory. It was the highest opening round score by a winner in 10 years or since Jeff Sluman did the same thing at the 1997 Tucson Open. Since the TOUR started tracking such things in 1970, 76 is the highest opening round score that eventually led to victory. It's been done five times, but not since Mike Sullivan accomplished the feat at the 1989 Shell Houston Open.

Marino

• Second-year player Steve Marino is quietly putting together a strong sophomore season. Marino has made the cut in all seven of his starts with four Top-25 finishes. He's 17th in the FedExCup standings and leads the TOUR with 14 rounds in the 60s.

• There were some huge leaps made in the FedExCup standings last week following The Honda Classic. Winner Ernie Els climbed 171 spots all the way to 11th while Brett Quigley and Jose Coceres climbed 115 and 114 spots, respectively