TEEING OFF

1 Just about the first words out of CBS announcer Bill Macatee’s mouth after Zach Johnson won the AT&T; Classic on Sunday were how Johnson had moved into fourth place in the FedEx Cup standings.

Wow, hold the presses.

We’re past the halfway point in the PGA Tour’s debut of its NASCAR-like seasonlong points race, which is too early to say whether the FedEx Cup is getting any traction or failing to deliver the message.

Tour officials have said they believe that once the four-tournament playoffs beginning in late August come into focus, so will an abiding interest in the points race.

Until then, it’s all a work in progress, and that includes a public relations campaign to change the emphasis from the money list to the points standings. Most players say they aren’t keeping track, but you can be sure they know the money list backward and forward. The real test of success will be whether the marquee players such as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson play all the FedEx Cup events leading to the season-ending Tour Championship.

2 It’s the only PGA Tour event named after a hotel chain, and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial is having difficulty getting the top players to check in. Third-ranked Jim Furyk is the only player in the top 10 this week in Fort Worth, where the biggest buzz the tournament has generated in the last 10 years was when Annika Sorenstam played in 2003 and Woods in 1997.

3 There could be another big payday in store for Padraig Harrington, who Sunday became the first Irishman to win the Irish Open in 25 years and earned about $600,000. He tees it up this week at the BMW Championship at Wentworth and if he wins there, Harrington claims a bonus of roughly $2 million for bagging both titles.

It won’t be easy. Five players ranked in the top 10 are on hand: Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Henrik Stenson, Retief Goosen and Luke Donald. Harrington is ranked 11th.

4 Darren Clarke update: He missed the Irish Open last week after injuring a hamstring playing soccer with his sons and might not be at full strength for this week’s BMW Championship after turning over an off-road vehicle during a jaunt in a field near his house. Clarke injured his hand. “I am a bit of a jinx right now and you wouldn’t want to be hanging around me at the minute,” he said.

5 While the LPGA waits for Sorenstam and Michelle Wie to get sound and play in the debut of the $2.6-million Ginn Tribute, there’s a new kid on the block.

Ashleigh Simon, 18, turned pro, signed with IMG, then accepted a sponsor’s exemption into the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship in July. Simon, from South Africa, is the only player to win her country’s amateur stroke play and match play championships three times.

Meanwhile, Lorena Ochoa had this to say about Wie, who accepted a sponsor’s invitation to play the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic in July, her sixth appearance on the men’s tour: “We believe she belongs on the women’s circuit.... She needs to concentrate on women’s golf.”

-- THOMAS BONK