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1. Tiger Woods, United States — Even when the most recognizable athlete on the planet is not playing, he finds a way to make news. It was announced last week that the Tiger Woods Foundation will be the host of a PGA Tour event in the Washington, D.C., area on the July 4 weekend, taking the place of the International. A press conference will be held on Wednesday to announce the title sponsor and the course, which could be Congressional Country Club. A club official said he had been in negotiations with the PGA Tour about hosting the event. The Tiger Woods Foundation will be the primary charity of the tournament, as it is for the Deutsche Bank Championship and the Target World Challenge. Woods might not be able to play in the new event this year because his wife, Elin, is expecting their first child right about that time. Meanwhile, Woods is taking another week off but is expected to return to the PGA Tour next week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. So far, he is pacing himself for the long haul of the FedEx Cup points race. He played only twice on the West Coast Swing, where he won the Buick Invitational before being eliminated by Nick O'Hern in the third round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. He also made the trip to Dubai and tied for third.

2. Phil Mickelson, United States — Lefty is taking a two-week break after playing in six consecutive events on the West Coast Swing and will play twice more before defending his Masters title next month. Mickelson said he again plans to have two drivers in his bag at Augusta and undoubtedly has worked with Callaway during his break to refine them. He will return next week for the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and play the following week in the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral. Mickelson usually plays the week before all major championships because he said he feels a bit rusty in the opening round if he does not, but he said he will skip the Shell Houston Open because he believes the course at Redstone does not help his preparation for Augusta. Last year, he won the BellSouth Classic at Sugarloaf the week before heading to Augusta and was openly disappointed when that tournament, now sponsored by AT&T, was moved to May — the week after the Players Championship — on the new schedule. Even though he had something of a slow start, for him, before winning at Pebble Beach and losing out in a playoff at Riviera, Mickelson's game was solid enough that he led the PGA Tour in the all-around ranking on the West Coast Swing.

3. Vijay Singh, Fiji — Despite ranking third on the PGA Tour money list and in the FedEx Cup point standings through the West Coast Swing, the big Fijian has slipped, incredibly, to No. 9 in the World Golf Rankings. It was only about 2 1/2 years ago that Singh unseated Tiger Woods at the top of the rankings for a few months, but now he is in danger of falling out of the top 10 for the first time in more than a decade. He quieted the talk that he might be slipping downhill at the age of 44 by winning the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship, but expect to hear more of the same if he does not pick it up between now and the Masters. It's not as though he has fallen off the face of the earth since Kapalua; he finished seventh in the FBR Open and tied for 11th at Pebble Beach. However, he has simply become a victim of his own success. It's unrealistic to think he could keep up the pace of his run from 2002 to 2005, when he won 19 tournaments on the PGA Tour, including nine during a magical 2004 season when he moved ahead of Woods. Singh is playing this week in the PODS Championship near Tampa, where he won in 2004 and finished second to Retief Goosen in 2003.

4. Jim Furyk, United States — Furyk never got it going in the Honda Classic and finished out of the top 20 for the first time in five stroke-play events this season. After finishing in no worse than a tie for sixth in his last three times out, not counting his tie for 17th in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Furyk broke 70 only when he shot 69 in the first round and wound up in a tie for 31st at PGA National. Incredibly, he did not make a single birdie in the third round and had only 10 all week, although he did make a double-bogey 6 on the second hole on his way to a 73 on Saturday. His best golf of the week came when he made three birdies in a span of seven holes Sunday to tour the nine in 33, but he could not manage another birdie the rest of the way on the challenging Champion Course. His biggest victory of the week might have been making birdie in the first round on the 604-yard final hole, which he said is difficult to play because you can't see where you want to play your second shot, even from the fairway. Furyk is taking a week off and will tee it up next week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

5. Charles Howell III, United States — Having virtually assured that he has achieved one of his goals by playing his way into the Masters in his hometown of Augusta by being the best player on the West Coast Swing, Howell is back on the PGA Tour this week in the PODS Championship. He missed the cut in this event last year when it was held in October, and he tied for 16th on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort in 2005. But Howell has been a different player since then. He climbed to 15th in the World Golf Rankings with a spectacular start to his season and leads the PGA Tour money list and the FedEx Cup points standings through the first nine weeks of the season. He has made $2,143,650 already and is a lead-pipe cinch to pass his career high of $2,702,747, set in 2002 — perhaps even this week. He leads the PGA Tour in actual scoring average at 68.71 and also is No. 1 before the cut at 67.92. Howell finished in the top 10 only three times last year but already has four such results already, including his playoff victory in the Nissan Open, runner-up finishes in the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Buick Invitational, and a tie for ninth in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. In his five stroke-play events, he is 53 under par.

6. Ernie Els, South Africa — The Big Easy is taking it easy this week after finishing in a tie for sixth in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand and will play again on the PGA Tour next week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He bounced back from an opening-round 73 — including 39 on the back nine — in Thailand to finished five strokes out of the three-way playoff for the title won by his 20-year-old countryman, Anton Haig. Els' best golf came when he posted a bogey-free, five-under-par 67 in the third round. That was part of a stretch in while he played 34 holes without a bogey before making two in his final six holes of the tournament. It wasn't all bad in the first round when Els dug himself a big hole — he made six birdies only to have a good round undermined by double bogeys on the seventh and 16th holes. He played the front nine in 7-under for the week but could muster a total of only 1-under on the back. Els said he has put the first-round loss to Bradley Dredge of Wales in the Accenture behind him and believes his game is rounding into form heading to the Masters. He has finished out of the top five only in the Johnnie Walker in his four stroke-play events.

7. Adam Scott, Australia — Scott said before playing in Thailand last week that his game still felt rusty after a long layoff following the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship, and it was that way again in the Johnnie Walker Classic. After opening with a 74, he played well enough the last three days to finish in a tie for 25th, but the start to 2007 has not been what was expected after he moved to No. 4 in the World Golf Rankings. Many predicted this might be the year Scott challenged Tiger Woods, and there is still plenty of time for him to do that, but after he finished second to Vijay Singh at Kapalua the results have not been there. He tied for 69th in the Nissan Open and was upset by Shaun Micheel on the 21st hole in the first round of the Accenture. Inconsistency dogged Scott all week in Thailand, although he had it going for a while in the final round when he did not make a bogey, but was derailed by a double-bogey 5 on No. 16 en route to a 71. His best stretch all week came when he make five birdies in the last 10 holes of round two on his way to a 69. Scott said he will take two weeks off before playing in the WGC-CA Championship at Doral.

8. Luke Donald, England — It was a title defense to forget for Donald in the Honda Classic as he made the cut on the number and eventually finished in a tie for 46th. He missed the cut only once last year but was on the verge of missing the weekend for the third time this season before he birdied three of his last four holes in round two. He was playing at his Florida base in Palm Beach Gardens, but Donald might not be a fan of the switch from the TPC at Mirasol, where he won the title last year, to Champion Course at PGA National Golf Club. He put himself in a hole right out of the gate by shooting 77 in the first round, when his only birdie came on the fourth hole. Even his best round of the week, a second-round 67, was marred by a double-bogey 6 on the 16th hole. Donald closed with a 69, but his four birdies were almost offset by three bogeys. He putted well only on Friday, when he needed only 27 putts, but he averaged 30.5 strokes per round on the greens. However, his ball-striking was solid so he has something to build on for his next event, which might be next week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Donald has not played well since he opened the season by finishing seventh in the Mercedes and tying for second in the Sony Open in Hawaii.

9. Geoff Ogilvy, Australia — It took the reigning U.S. Open champion awhile to find his form this year, but when he finally did in the Accenture he had commentator Johnny Miller rhapsodizing that winning his first major was no fluke despite Phil Mickelson's meltdown and that the Aussie has more major titles in his future. This is a guy everybody likes, too. Respected journalist Jaime Diaz called Ogilvy the best interview and one of the most accessible players in golf last week in Golf World — Diaz compared him to Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in that regard. The only consolation defending champion Ogilvy could take in his loss to Henrik Stenson in the Accenture final was that he rose to a career-high No. 7 in the World Golf Rankings, one spot higher than his position after he won at Winged Foot last June. Ogilvy is usually tough on himself, and his start to the season was not as bad as he was making out. He tied for 19th in the Mercedes and tied for eighth in the Sony Open before putting it all together in Tucson. He was planning to play in the PODS Championship this week near Tampa but withdrew to begin his Masters preparation and instead will play next week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

10. David Toms, United States — Following his fifth top-20 finish of the season, Toms is taking two weeks off before he plays next in the WGC-CA Championship at Doral. That will be the first of three tournaments in a row for Toms, who also will play in the Shell Houston Open before heading to the Masters next month. He tied for 20th in the Honda Classic last week, where three double bogeys during the week cost him a chance to finish in the top 10 for the fourth time in six events on the PGA Tour this year. The only day Toms did not make a double was Thursday, but he had five bogeys and posted his worst round of the week, a 72. However, he rallied after making bogey on four of his first five holes of the tournament and then made the cut with a 68 on Friday, his best round of the week despite a double-bogey 6 on the second hole. He showed his best stuff on the last 10 holes of round two, which he played in 5 under par. Normally an excellent ball-striker, Toms hit only 46 of 82 greens in regulation, but he salvaged his week with some brilliant putting. He led the field with a putting average of 1.634 and tied for third by averaging 27.0 putts per round.