2010 PLAYERS: Monday Notebook

Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Few par 4s longer than 350 yards on TOUR provide as many eagle chances as the fourth hole at TPC Sawgrass.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- THE PLAYERS Championship week has finally arrived. PGATOUR.COM will bring you all the news and notes every day. We'll provide updates throughout each day, so check back often.

PHIL'S SHOT AT NO. 1: Depending on their respective finishes at this week's PLAYERS Championship, Phil Mickelson has a chance to overtake Tiger Woods and become the top-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in his career.

If Mickelson wins THE PLAYERS and Woods finished outside the top five, then Mickelson will become the 13th player to claim the No. 1 ranking in the 24-year history of the OWGR.

Mickelson's second-place finish and Tiger's missed cut at the Quail Hollow Championship set up this rare opportunity.

Woods has been the No. 1 player for the last 258 weeks, and has been No. 1 for a total of 598 weeks in his career.

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy has moved to No. 9 in the ranking -- a jump of four spots -- thanks to his win at Quail Hollow.

For the full rankings, click here.

STRICKER OUT, LEVIN IN: Steve Stricker, the third-ranked player in the world, had to withdraw due his sore right shoulder. That opened up a spot for first alternate Spencer Levin.

The top alternates, in order, are now: Chad Collins, Troy Merritt, Carl Pettersson, David Duval and Graham DeLaet.

To read more on Stricker's WD, click here.

KLAUK AND KLAUK: The way Jeff Klauk sees it, two heads are better than one. Particularly if the other head is your brother, John, who also grew up play TPC Sawgrass where your father was the course superintendant for more than two decades.

Jeff Klauk

So John is caddying for Jeff this week as he makes his second appearance in THE PLAYERS Championship. Jeff tied for 14th last year in his debut. John worked for his brother quite a bit while he was playing the Nationwide Tour so they know they'll click.

"John knows this course just as well as I do, and I think it'll be a huge asset to have him around this week," Klauk said. "We know each other obviously better than anybody else, so he'll be able to help me out with my game."

Klauk, who won more than $1.2 million had finished fourth three times last year, has had a frustrating sophomore season on the PGA TOUR. He's played in 12 events and is still looking for his first top-10 with his best finish at tie for 17th at the Puerto Rico Open presented by Banco Popular.

The reasons for Klauk's lackluster play are two-fold, He had a back seizure after Pebble Beach and had to have cortisone shots to "calm it down," he reported. Klauk also dropped from 13th to 80th in driving accuracy.

"For me to play well on the PGA TOUR, I don't hit it as far as a lot of guys, and I need to hit it in the fairway," Klauk said. "If I'm hitting out of the rough, you know, I'm not going to play very well, and consequently if I hit it in the fairway I'll give myself a lot better chance to hit good shots into the green for sure."

Klauk is hoping that a return to the course he grew up playing will help him get untracked.

"Absolutely," he said. "I know where to hit it on every hole. I say I don't even need to play practice rounds, just want to go out there and see how the course is playing. It's going to be a lot firmer and faster than it is normally when I play it, but yeah, there's definitely a comfort level out there." -- Helen Ross

Badz/PGA TOUR

Tiger Woods chips onto the second green during his practice round Monday.

HOW'S SAWGRASS?: TPC Sawgrass superintendent Tom Vlach and his staff had to work extra hard to have the Stadium Course in championship shape this week, thanks to one of the coldest winters in Florida history.

Onshore winds dropped the temperature so often early this year that Vlach's corps of turf workers had to cover the greens overnight on 36 different occasions to protect the grass. In a normal winter, they do that perhaps twice the whole season. -- Adam Barr

TIGER'S HERE: Tiger Woods, fresh off his missed cut at the Quail Hollow Championship last week, did not waste any time getting to TPC Sawgrass.

At noon on Monday, he was on the putting green, with a small crowd gathered to watch him. He then played nine holes of a practice round in the afternoon.

PGATOUR.COM producer Nick Zaccardi followed Tiger during his practice round. Click here for his report.

For more on Tiger and No. 2 Phil Mickelson, click here.

RORY'S BIRTHDAY: Rory McIlroy will celebrate his 21st birthday on Tuesday, but on Monday, he got back to business following his record-setting win at Quail Hollow on Sunday when he shot a course-record 62 to win his first TOUR event.

McIlroy had a practice round scheduled with Adam Scott. But he plans to take it easy on Tuesday before getting serious about THE PLAYERS Championship. He'll make his second start in this event.

"I'm going to enjoy my birthday and get focused on Wednesday morning and get ready to play there," McIlroy said after Sunday's win. "That golf course is very tough and you need to be on your game to do well around there."

TWO STRAIGHT?: Speaking of McIlroy, he will be trying to follow three other players who have won on the PGA TOUR the week before THE PLAYERS and then captured the tournament here at Ponte Vedra Beach:

• Ray Floyd won the Doral-Eastern Open in 1981 and then came to Sawgrass Country Club the following week and won in a playoff over Curtis Strange and Barry Jaeckel.

• Tom Kite won the 1989 Nestle Invitational at Bay Hill, beating Davis Love III in a playoff, then came to TPC Sawgrass and beat Chip Beck by one stroke.

• Tiger Woods won the 2001 Bay Hill Invitational by one stroke over Phil Mickelson and then captured THE PLAYERS the following week by one stroke over Vijay Singh.

WEATHER FORECAST: A cold front stretching from the Carolinas down into the Florida Panhandle will slowly move Southeast overnight and will eventually stall across Northern Florida late Tuesday into Wednesday. Partly cloudly skies can be expected to start Tuesday before showers and thunderstorms become likely during the afternoon and evening hours. Some of these storms could produce heavy rainfall at times.

The chance for scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue on Wednesday before the front finally dissipates and decreases the chances for thunderstorms on Thursday.

Partly cloudy skies can be expected on Friday with highs in the upper 80s. Another weak front will move across the area Saturday afternoon, bring a slight chance for thunderstorms.

Here's a day-to-day look:

TIGER AT TPC SAWGRASS: Interesting statistics uncovered by the PGA TOUR's Alex Turnbull about Tiger Woods and TPC Sawgrass.

Tiger's stroke average of 71.5 through 48 rounds at THE PLAYERS Championship is his highest scoring average per event as a pro (with a minimum of 25 rounds). The four majors follow THE PLAYERS -- U.S. Open (70.9 stroke average in 50 rounds), Masters (70.5 in 56 rounds), British Open (70.3 in 46 rounds) and PGA Championship (69.8 in 48 rounds).

Of the 11th hardest holes for Tiger on the PGA TOUR since turning pro, four are at TPC Sawgrass.