Bill Hass’ Setup for the 2011 Tour Championship:

Driver: Titleist 910D2 8.5* with Fujikura Speeder 757
3-wood: Titleist 910F 13.5* with Fujikura Motore VC 8.1
Irons: Titleist CB 712 2; CB 710 3-P with True Temper Dynamic Gold
Wedges: Vokey Design 54*, 60* with True Temper Dynamic Gold
Putter Scotty Cameron Kombi Belly
Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

www.titleist.com

Justin Rose shook off inclement weather and numerous charging competitors Sunday at Cog Hill to win the BMW Championship. Debuting a new adidas Golf shoe and gaming the R11 driver and Corza Ghost putter, Rose missed only two putts inside of 10 feet throughout the week to win the FedEx Cup’s third playoff event. As NBC Sports golf analyst Johnny Miller noted during the back nine on Sunday, “That white putter; if he wins, it’s going to be because of what he did inside ten feet.” Rose has used the Corza Ghost in all of his three PGA Tour wins.

Justin Rose’s Setup for the 2011 BMW Championship:

• Driver: TaylorMade R11 driver 8*
• Fairway Woods: TaylorMade R9 fairway 13*, TaylorMade R11 fairway 17*
• Irons: TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB irons (3-PW)
• Wedges: TaylorMade TP xFT ZTP wedges (54*)
• Putter: TaylorMade Corza Ghost putter
• Ball: TaylorMade Penta TP golf ball #99
• Apparel: adidas golf apparel
• Footwear: adiSTREET footwear from adidas Golf

www.taylormadegolf.com

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Lemont, IL -It may have been an unseasonably cool day at Cog Hill for the opening round of the 2011 BMW Championship, but it didn’t stop Justin Rose from finishing the day with 8 under par (63). “Starting the day today, my mindset was to respect the golf course and to go out there and just fairways and greens it,” Rose said. “That sounds simple. I didn’t expect to do that and make nine birdies out there for sure..”

Despite hitting a shank on the par-4 18th, Webb Simpson is tied for 2nd, with Chicago’s Mark Wilson at 6 under (65). Other players in the chasing down Justin Rose, include K.J. Choi 4th (4 under 67), T5 Jim Furyk, Camilo Villegas, and John Sneden (3 under 68), and T8 Rickie Fowler (2 under 69). If conditions stay cool like they are forecasted for the rest of the tournament, the course will firm up and become even tougher for the rest of the field to shoot low scores.

Webb Simpson’s Setup for the 2011 Deutsche Bank Championship:

• Driver: Titleist 909D3 10.5 with UST Axiv Core 69
• 3-wood: Titleist 910F 13.5 with UST VTS 8X
• 5-wood: Titleist 910F 17 with UST VTS 8X
• Hybrid: Titleist 910H 21 with Graphite Design Tour AD DI 105
• Irons: Titleist 680 4-P with True Temper Dynamic Gold X100
• Wedges: Vokey Design 54 TVD, 58 TVD with True Temper Dynamic Gold S400
• Putter: Ping Craz-E-Long
• Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

www.titleist.com

The Tour Championship is set to conclude today and there is a slew of possible outcomes for determining who wins the FedExCup. I’m no actuary, but Kin Lo, one of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup experts broke down the likely scenarios involving Jim Furyk, Retief Goosen, Luke Donald, and Geoff Ogilvy.

• If Furyk, Retief Goosen or Geoff Ogilvy wins the event, he will win the FedExCup if Charley Hoffman and Paul Casey finish outside of the top three
• If Luke Donald wins the event, he wins the FedExCup
• If Casey or Hoffman wins the event, he wins the FedExCup, regardless of how anybody else finishes

Read more of the specifics on Kin Lo’s breakdown on the PGA Tour Wrap-up

I’m No Actuary

I don’t know about you, but two things come to mind when looking at the scenarios:

1) The FedExCup points system is too complicated and needs to be easier to understand. It shouldn’t require you to be an actuary to figure who will win the FedExCup, with all the different scenarios, projected points, etc. This has been a big point of contention since the FedExCup started three years ago and casual  golf fans, are probably thinking “huh?” I really wish I paid more attention in math class.

2) A winner take all scenario would be much better way to determine the FedExCup winner. The players would still earn FedExCup points, like they do now leading up to the Tour Championship and determine the top 30 point leaders to compete in the final event, but instead of using points, just win the tournament and its done. Could you imagine if the NCAA Tournament used a FedExCup points based system to determine the National Championship, team A beats team B in the final game, but  team B wins the National Title because they had earned more points. You’d have a lot of angry college basketball fans and probably a backlash against the NCAA.

Regardless of what happens today at East Lake, there are a ton of possible outcomes for who will win the FedExCup and should make for a thrilling ending, even if it means my brain will hurt from crunching the numbers.

Who do you think will win the FedExCup?

Sean O'Hair signs an autograph for Evans Scholar Matthew Sachaj, who received a four-year scholarship from BMW North America for O'Hair's hole-in-one: photo Western Golf Association

Lemont, IL – September 11, 2010..Sean O’Hair scored a hole-in-one today during the third round of the BMW Championship, the third leg in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. In recognition of O’Hair’s hole-in-one, BMW donated a four-year college scholarship to the Evans Scholars Foundation, which will provide an incremental college scholarship to another deserving caddie for the 2011-2012 school year.

Evans Scholar Matthew Sachaj, a caddie at Green Acres Country Club in Northbrook, Illinois, met O’Hair and BMW of North America President Jim O’Donnell to receive the scholarship check on behalf of the Evans Scholars Foundation. Sachaj graduated from Notre Dame College Prep and is an incoming freshman at Northwestern University.

BMW continued its Hole-In-One scholarship tradition, which grants a four-year Evans Scholarship in recognition of any player to score the first hole-in-one on any hole during the tournament. O’Hair holed his tee shot on the 211-yard, par three second hole on Cog Hill Golf & Country Club’s Dubsdread course, where the top 70 golfers on the PGA TOUR are competing this week for the final 30 spots in the TOUR Championship.

www.wgaesf.com

The FedEx Cup makes its third stop on the PGA TOUR Playoffs at Cog Hill in Lemont, IL for the BMW Championship this week. One of the players in contention of winning the FedEx Cup, is Ping Golf’s Hunter Mahan, who is 8th in FedEx Cup points standings, and having his best season with two victories on Tour and making his second appearance on the USA Ryder Cup.

We caught up with Hunter to talk about his success on Tour with the Ping S56 Irons, his preparation for the FedEx Cup and Ryder Cup, what he’s looking forward to in his second Ryder Cup appearance, what’s it like being a part of the next generation of young superstars on Tour, what his ultimate dream car is, his advice for amateur golfers, and what he would be doing if he wasn’t playing golf for a living.

Special thanks to Ping and Hunter Mahan for making this possible.

www.ping.com

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PGA Tour player Luke Donald made a special appearance at Wrigley Field-home of the Chicago Cubs to build excitement for the 2010 BMW Championship, which will kick-off Thursday, September 9th at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Illinois.  Donald threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the Chicago Cubs game and participated in the 7th inning signing of the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”In case you’re wondering, Luke threw a great pitch over home plate and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” really well.

Before Luke threw out the first pitch, we had the opportunity to ask him about preparing for the Cubs game appearance, what he’s doing to keep his momentum going into BMW Championship, his thoughts on “Bunkergate” and Dustin Johnson, the grooves rule, breaking 60, equipment and more!

About the BMW Championship

The BMW Championship features 70 of the world’s top professional golfers and is the third leg in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. All proceeds from the 2010 BMW Championship will once again benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, one of the United States’ largest privately funded college scholarship programs, providing full university tuition and housing grants to deserving young caddies. Since BMW became a presenting sponsor of the tournament in 2007, the BMW Championship has raised a total of $7.3 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation.

2010 BMW Championship

If you have ever watched a PGA Tour event on TV, in person, or on your computer, you probably have wondered at some point, how are they able to get the precise distance a ball has traveled, how far it is away from the pin, or the statistics for number of putts Tiger Woods makes within 10 feet?

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All that data comes from an army of 300-400 volunteers that follow the action on the golf course using survey grade lasers and handheld devices to record every move each player makes on the golf course and that data is sent in real-time to the PGA TOUR ShotLink truck.

During round one of the BMW Championship I was able to get a behind the scenes tour of the PGA TOUR ShotLink truck and learn about how ShotLink works and how they collect and gather the data, that you and I see at home.

Background on ShotLink

The first electronic scoreboard system was first introduced by the TOUR in 1983, but that system like those that followed over the years proved to be very inefficient and unreliable, relying on scorers to write down the data at the end of each hole by a greenside operator. This was so error prone and that it eventually lead to the creation of ShotLink in 1999. The vision of ShotLink is to “Turn Data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into entertainment” according to a quote on the ShotLink website.

In 2008 CDW became the Official Technology Partner of the PGA TOUR with a five-year integrated marketing and business partnership. CDW powers ShotLink with state of the art technology and support both on and off the course. “This partnership is a unique opportunity to demonstrate how CDW helps organizations achieve their goals through specialized technology solutions,” said Mark Gambill, Chief Marketing Officer, CDW. “We look forward to leveraging our IT expertise and range of products and partners to help the PGA TOUR provide an enhanced experience for fans and improve TOUR operations.”

How ShotLink Works

Prior to each golf event a team from the PGA TOUR goes out the golf course to map it out and get a digital image of each hole. The background information that is collected is used to plot two points by any two coordinates on the golf course (e.g. from the tee-box to the fairway or location of the next shot).

At a typical PGA TOUR event, ShotLink is operated by small staff of PGA TOUR employees and 300-400 volunteers who score each hole on the course with a walking scorer, fairway laser team, and greenside laser team throughout the tournament. That’s almost three-man years of effort between volunteers and staff. Fun fact: The annual ShotLink volunteer count on the PGA TOUR is approximately 10,000

All the data that is collected in real-time is used in multiple ways from the player statistics displayed on the course scoreboards and TV broadcasts, to the shot information like distance traveled, distance to the pin, to the information you view on the PGATOUR.com ShotTracker application, and more.

Watch the video to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the PGA TOUR ShotLink. I was blown away by the amount of data and information collected and you’ll never look at golf statistics the same way again!

Special Thanks to the PGA TOUR’s Sean Howland and CDW for making this possible.

For more information visit http://www.shotlink.com or http://www.pgatour.com