The TOUR Insider: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

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Rory Sabbatini beat Jim Furyk in playoff last year in Fort Worth.

Rory Sabbatini enjoyed a notable hot streak preceding his playoff victory last year in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas.

Poor putting has Rory Sabbatini off to a slow start in 2008. (Getty Images)

POWER RANKINGS

Dave Shedloski's top five players heading into the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial: 1. Jim Furyk. Playoff runner-up to Rory Sabbatini in 2007. Seems like only a matter of time before this trophy ends up in his capable hands. 2. Phil Mickelson. Won at Colonial in 2000. Simply too good to overlook. 3. Nathan Green. Other than a third at The Honda Classic, hasn't contended this year. He nearly won at Colonial the last two seasons. Fifth in putting average on TOUR should help. 4. Kenny Perry. The two-time Colonial winner has been surging in the last two weeks. 5. K.J. Choi. Has been quiet of late, but Colonial seems like his kind of course, and the Texas resident does have three top-25 finishes in his four appearances.

The South African tied for second at the Masters, then finished joint third in his following two starts at the Wachovia Championship and the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Three weeks later he dispatched Jim Furyk and Bernhard Langer on the first extra hole in the tournament's first three-man playoff.

History hasn't repeated this year. Whether Sabbatini can repeat in the $6.1 million tournament at venerable Colonial Country Club will depend on how he's progressing in piecing together his golf game after it got derailed following the Buick Invitational. Sabbatini finished third at Torrey Pines, but he contracted the flu the following week and hasn't been the same since.

"By the time I got to the end of the West Coast Swing at the end of the (World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship), I was having a hard time walking 18 holes," said Sabbatini, whose best finish since was a tie for 27th at THE PLAYERS two weeks ago. "That kind of wiped me out and took away a lot of my energy and focus. Maybe some things just crept into my game that weren't there to start with, and I've just kind of tried to work those bugs back out of the system.

"We're close, we're getting there. It feels like the ballstriking is there, feel like I'm hitting it well. We've just got to get everything clicking together."

At THE PLAYERS Championship, Sabbatini expressed frustration at his primary weakness of late, which is his putting.

"I'm getting tired of hitting it as well as I have been, and I just can't seem to get anything to go in," he said. "I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with my putting."

That wasn't the case last year at Colonial, where Sabbatini had rather mundane statistics on his way to victory -- except on the greens. A resident of Southlake, Texas, Sabbatini ranked 25th in driving distance, 55th in greens in regulation and 60th in fairways hit. The one area of proficiency was putting; he was fourth in putting average and first in total putts with 106.

Sabbatini may live in Texas, but that didn't change the fact that Colonial, which was good to Ben Hogan (he won the first two editions in 1946 and '47 and five times overall), hasn't been hospitable to natives of the Lone Star state.

Ten times in 60 years, a Texan has won at Colonial, but Ben Crenshaw was the last to do it in 1990. In fact, his is the only victory for a Texas native in the last 29 years.

FEDEXCUP POINTERS:

• Sabbatini became the first tournament winner to post an even-par score of 70, which he had in the first round, since Phil Mickelson in 2000. The last tournament champion to shoot a round over par was Olin Browne in 1999 after an opening 73.

• No tournament has been held on one course since its inception longer than the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Interestingly, no course has changed less, perhaps, at least in terms of length. Colonial Country Club, par-70, measured 7,035 yards in 1946. This week it will play to 7,054 yards.

• Texan Chad Campbell recently confided that the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial is one of his most important tournaments of the year. Campbell, who lives in nearby Colleyville, has come close to winning at Colonial Country Club, finishing second in 2004. That is his only top-10 finish in six appearances.

• In addition to Campbell and Sabbatini, players with Fort Worth area ties in the field are Ben Crane, Todd Hamilton, J.J. Henry, Brandt Jobe, Mark Brooks and Ryan Palmer. Crane, after finishing tied for sixth at THE PLAYERS, had to withdraw from last week's AT&T Classic when his bad back seized up again.

• Before Sabbatini, the last area player to take the Colonial crown was David Frost, another South African, in 1997.

• Jason Bohn, who finished third at the Wachovia Championship, has been wielding a new Scotty Cameron Tour Studio Select Newport putter the last few weeks, one that is 35 inches long, an inch longer than what he had been using. He followed up his finish at Quail Hollow by placing 71st at THE PLAYERS.

• Corey Pavin leads the field with seven top-10 finishes in 24 starts at Colonial, including victories in 1985 and 1996, but he has posted just on top-10 finish since that win 12 years ago. Pavin also has the most appearances in the field, a distinction he shares with Brooks, who has just two top-10s.

• Eleven of the top 20 in the FedExCup standings are entered at Colonial, led by No. 2 Mickelson and No. 5 Anthony Kim.

• Thus far, 250 players have scored FedExCup points, ranging from Tiger Woods and his 17,745 points, which leads the PGA TOUR for the 13th straight week down to Bob Burns, who has 24 points.

• Woods, still out after knee surgery following the Masters is the only player in the top 10 in the FedExCup standings with fewer than 10 starts (he has just five). Only two others in the top 20 have fewer than 10 starts: Adam Scott at No. 12 and Sergio Garcia, winner of THE PLAYERS, at No. 15.