FanHouse Kevin Na

The PGA Tour's best players are dog tired. They are at Chicago's Cog Hill this week for the BMW Championship feeling playoff pressure. They are running on fumes.

Do you feel their pain?

In a word: NO!

Golfers, despite all the sore backs, have never impressed anyone with their toughness. The game may have as rich a history as any sport played but rarely anywhere in its memoirs do you find Curt Schilling's bloody sock, or Willis Reed's emotional strength. (OK, Tiger at Torrey Pines in 2008. We'll give you that one, but who else?)

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An old golf saying goes, simply, "there are no pictures on the scorecard." This means that it doesn't matter how you get there, the score is all that matters.

The leaders at the Deutsche Bank Championship are perfect examples of this. Steve Stricker was the leader after the first day, with a 8-under 63, but struggled in the second round to a 72. His third round 65 on Sunday has him at 13-under, along with Retief Goosen (65-67-68) and Sean O'Hair (66-64-70). All three leaders have won on tour this year, and all three will be battling to take control of the FedEx Cup after two weeks.

It is really hard for Tiger Woods to do anything without garnishing the utmost attention. Anything he does off the course is newsworthy and we treat it like a presidential move. What is so interesting about this week at the Players Championship is Tiger is doing what made him famous, only we're too busy complaining about all that he is doing wrong and not focusing on what he's doing right.

On Saturday at TPC Sawgrass, Woods had a camera on his every swing, and while critics were complaining about his driver (Guilty party number one -- I actually tweeted during his round, "When was the last time Tiger didn't block a tee shot right, the Mike Douglas Show?"), we were forgetting to pay attention to the more important thing ... his golf.

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Every week, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action, with a little commentary mixed in. This past weekend, FanHouse was out at the FBR Open, a tournament known more for its party atmosphere than its golf.

Kenny Perry Nearly Made Me Emotional -- On Friday, Kenny Perry walked in the press room after a smoldering 63 that got him back in a tournament that he nearly shot himself out of on Thursday with a 1-over 72. When he started chatting, it was the same old story you get from any golfer. "I made birdie here, I missed an eagle putt there, I felt I hit the ball solid, it was a good day for me around the greens." Yawn. We've heard all that before, Kenny.

What I wasn't ready for was this. Perry started talking about his ailing father and how he felt he needed to play good golf just keep his father alive.

It's never too early to get major championship talk a-stirring, with the practice rounds beginning in less than two weeks at Royal Birkdale.

Two players, Shaun Micheel and some other guy I can't think of, have already withdrawn from the British Open, but the field is nearly complete with the international qualifying wrapping up, and some familiar names will be present on the links.

Davis Love III, Paul Goydos and Rich Beem were three of seven golfers to qualify yesterday at the Dearborn, Michigan site with Matt Kuchar and Alex Cejka headlining the seven qualifiers at TPC Michigan.

Goydos, runner-up to Sergio Garcia in the Players Championship after a gust of wind killed his chances in the playoff, will be making his first appearance in the British and is fairly stoked about the opportunity.

"This was my No. 1 goal for the year," he said. "If nothing else happened this year, I wanted to play in the British Open. A lot of other good things have happened on top of that, but this really has been my No. 1 goal."

Some of the less fortunate souls that missed out were Ryan Moore, Kevin Na, Bubba Watson, Jose Maria Olazabal and Darren Clarke.