E-notes: Furyk, king of Warwick Hills, makes return

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You can't have a much better record than Jim Furyk's at the Buick Open. The 2003 Buick Open champ has finished in the top-10 at Warwick Hills in his last seven starts. During that span of time, he's 122-under par. He has a streak of 37 consecutive under-par rounds going at Warwick Hills, and, over the course of his career, he's made the cut in all 13 starts. He's played 52 rounds in his career at the Buick Open, and 51 of them are par-or-better. He's 178-under par for his career in the tournament.

Austin

Another player with a strong record at the Buick Open is Woody Austin. He won the event as a rookie in 1995 and has finished first, tied for second, tied for third and tied for fourth in his career at Warwick Hills.

This is the 50th anniversary of the Buick Open. Buick is the longest running sponsor of a TOUR event dating back to 1958. Honda (1984) is next on the list with AT&T (Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1986) and Chrysler (Bob Hope in 1986) just behind.

Hunter Mahan is starting to build a Jim Furyk-like record at the Travelers Championship. Mahan has finished tied for second, first and tied for second in the last three years in Hartford following his runner-up effort this past week. He now has 11 rounds in the 60s in his last 12 starts at the TPC River Highlands. He's also in a rut in his final-round efforts -- he shot 65 in each of the last three years.

Adamonis

The Travelers Championship was kind to rookies Brad Adamonis (tied for sixth) and Kevin Streelman (tied for 10th) with each recording his first career top-10 finish last week.

Chris DiMarco has struggled most of the year and was actually outside the top 144 on the FedExCup points list going into last week's Travelers Championship. A tie for 13th jumped him back into contention for a playoff spot as he climbed 25 places to 141st.

In the year of the young guys, the older guard showed last week that they aren't going away anytime soon. No less than five players 45 or older finished in the top 10 in Hartford. Tommy Armour III (48 years old) led the way with a tie for second, while Vijay Singh (45) finished fifth and Michael Allen (49) and Kenny Perry (47) both finished tied for sixth. Corey Pavin (48) finished tied for 10th to round out the group.

Brian Bateman, the 2007 Buick Open winner, returns this week to defend the title he won in dramatic fashion with a 12-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole. Bateman was one of 12 players to claim his first PGA TOUR title in 2007. This season, six players -- Brian Gay (Mayakoba Golf Classic), Greg Kraft (Puerto Rico Open), Andres Romero (Zurich Classic of New Orleans), Johnson Wagner (Shell Houston Open), Anthony Kim (Wachovia Championship) and Ryuji Imada (AT&T Classic) -- are first-time winners.

Bateman

In 2007, Brian Bateman became the first Buick Open champion to win with a birdie on the final hole since Rocco Mediate did it in 2000.

In the history of the Buick Open, there have been 13 players in their 20s win this event. The first to do it was Billy Casper in 1958, with Tiger Woods, at 26 years, 7 months, 12 days, the last. Woods won in 2002.

Jason Gore tied for second a year ago, his best PGA TOUR finish since he won the 2005 84 LUMBER Classic. Gore fired rounds of 71-66-70-67 to finish one stroke behind winner Brian Bateman.