Notes: The U.S. Captain grabs the spotlight

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Fred Couples' win at the Senior Players Championship was his first Champions Tour major victory and propelled him to No. 11 in Charles Schwab Cup standings.

The Champions Tour heads to TPC Snoqualmie Ridge in Seattle, Wash. for the Boeing Classic, Aug. 22-28. The purse is $2 million and the winner will receive $300,000 and 300 Charles Schwab Cup points. Last year, Bernhard Langer notched a three-stroke win over Nick Price to claim his fifth victory of the season. Langer went on to earn the Charles Schwab Cup and Champions Tour Player of the Year.

LAST WEEK

•Fred Couples made a three-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to defeat John Cook to win the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, his first senior major championship victory.

•The Fred Couples/John Cook playoff was the longest in the history of the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. All three of the other playoffs at this event went only one hole.

•Fred Couples joined Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd as just the third player to claim both a PLAYERS Championship title and a Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship crown. Couples' win also earns a return trip to the 2012 PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

•Fred Couples earned 810 Charles Schwab Cup points and moved into 11th place in the season-long standings (880 total points). His check for $405,000 allowed him to jump from 66th to 22nd on the 2011 money list -- $522,032.

•John Cook is now 0-20 in major championships on the Champions Tour. On the PGA TOUR, Cook was 0-62 with his best finishes being a T2 at the 1992 British Open and second at the 1992 PGA Championship.

•Peter Senior's third-place finish at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship made him the only player to finish among the top-10 in four of the Champions Tour's five majors this year. Senior lost in a playoff at the Regions Tradition, was T5 at the Senior PGA Championship and was sixth at the U.S. Senior Open. He was T31 at the Senior British Open.

•Barry Lane was eligible but decided not to compete in last week's Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. Instead, Lane defended his Scottish Senior Open title on the European Senior Tour, producing an eagle on the final hole to defeat NBC announcer and Champions Tour professional Gary Koch by two strokes.

•Champions Tour professional Tom Pernice, Jr. missed the cut at the final PGA TOUR regular season event, the Wyndham Championship. Pernice finished No. 163 in the standings and missed the Playoffs for the FedExCup. He is currently No. 137 on the PGA TOUR money list and No. 31 on the Champions Tour money list.

CHARLES SCHWAB CUP

•At the start of July, Tom Lehman enjoyed a 480-point lead over Nick Price. Before last week's final major championship of the season, Lehman had four players within 500 points of his 1,661 total. With his fourth-place finish at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Lehman continues to lead with 1,985 points, 566 points in front of Peter Senior (1,419). U.S. Senior Open winner Olin Browne is third with 1,370 points (615 behind) followed by John Cook (1,344) and Mark Calcavecchia (1,278). The winner of this week's Boeing Classic will receive 300 points.

•Here's a past history of how the Charles Schwab Cup race has stood the week after the last major championship has been played and how it's ended up. Tom Watson made up the most ground after the last major to eventually win (2005) while Loren Roberts made up the most ground prior to the last major (2007). In 2003, Watson also enjoyed the biggest lead ever after the last major.

COMING UP

•Tom Lehman will be making his first start in the Boeing Classic. The current leading money winner and the points leader in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race, Lehman is bidding to make history this year. Lehman has won Player of the Year honors on both the Nationwide Tour (1991) and PGA TOUR (1996). Should he go on to earn similar honors on the Champions Tour, he would become the first player in history to accomplish that feat.

•This year's Boeing Classic includes 27 of last year's top 30 money winners. The only players missing are Fred Funk, who finished 6th on the final 2010 list, Corey Pavin, who was 17th, and Tom Watson, who was 23rd. Funk is sidelined with thumb and knee injuries.

•In the six-year history of the Boeing Classic, no first-round leaders/co-leaders have gone on to win.

•The seven-man playoff in 2007, won by Denis Watson, was the largest ever in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned tournament.

•Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry will participate in the Boeing Classic's first Military Appreciation Day on Sunday. During the tournament's final round, Petry will walk with the leaders in the final group and will participate in the ceremony when the champion is awarded the trophy. Petry is the second living Medal of Honor recipient from Afghanistan and is currently stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

•Nick Price was the most recent Champions Tour professional to join the field for the Umpqua Bank Challenge, a best-ball team event to be played Aug. 29-30 at Portland Golf Club in Oregon. Price joins tournament host Peter Jacobsen, along with Arnold Palmer, John Cook, Ben Crenshaw, Jay Haas, Bernhard Langer, Tom Lehman, Mark O'Meara and Fuzzy Zoeller. Two more players from the PGA TOUR will be announced this week.

NUMBERS

11 -- The number of bogey-free rounds Peter Senior has recorded in 50 rounds on the 2011 Champions Tour (through the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship).

DID YOU KNOW?

•Five players who won major championships on the PGA TOUR are set to become eligible for the Champions Tour in the next four years -- Steve Elkington and Vijay Singh in 2013, Davis Love III and Lee Janzen in 2014, and Todd Hamiltonin 2015.

ON THIS DATE

8/23/98 -- Just two months shy of his 63rd birthday, Gary Player became the second-oldest winner on the Champions Tour at the Northville Long Island Classic (Mike Fetchick remains the Tour's oldest winner. His 1985 Hilton Head Seniors Invitational victory occurred on his 63rd birthday).

8/27/89 -- David Frost claims the NEC World Series of Golf and earns a 10-year exemption into all PGA TOUR co-sponsored events.

8/28/83 -- Nick Price wins the first of 18 PGA TOUR victories when he goes wire-to-wire to beat Jack Nicklaus by two strokes for the World Series of Golf crown in Akron, Ohio.

8/28/88 -- Mike Reid makes par on the first extra hole to defeat Tom Watson at the NEC World Series of Golf. Reid's win earned him a 10-year exemption on the PGA TOUR.

QUOTES TO NOTE

"That's great. I get to play with the studs -- or try to." -- Fred Couples' comment when he discovers his Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship victory earns him a spot in the 2012 PLAYERS Championship.

"I'm the captain, and he wants to be on the team. This is my chance to hold my rank above him one time." -- Fred Couples, the Presidents Cup U.S. Team Captain speaks about the possibility of using one of his two captain's picks on Tiger Woods.

"The game is strong. Without Tiger, you've got a whole new lineup now that you have to talk about. Phil's in the mix but you've got a lot of kids who have been just waiting for their opportunities and they're taking them now." -- Tom Watson talks about the present state of the professional game.

"I used to putt with it on my chin. Then I forgot which chin to put it on." -- Peter Senior jokes why he went from resting a 46-inch long putter on his chin in 1989 to a 45-inch long putter on his chest nowadays.

"If I hadn't gone to Germany, I wouldn't be playing right now. So that's basically why I'm here after going there." -- Fred Couples explains how he played last week's Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship virtually pain-free after traveling to Germany for treatment on his back a couple of months earlier.

"Split down the middle with the buns grilled."-- Tom Watson describes the hot dogs at Westchester CC, which he says are the best in the world.