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Jesper Parnevik has made a quiet start to the PGA TOUR season, but he has a pretty good excuse for his mediocre form. During the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in January, he broke the middle finger in his left hand when he tripped over a suitcase in his hotel room.

"One of my kids had a nightmare, we had adjoining rooms, and I ran in there at two in the morning, tripped on a suitcase and fell and smashed my finger," he explained at the PODS Championship.

"They put it back in place, but it's still huge. They said it might take six or seven months to really go down, so we will see," he explained. "When I'm on the course, it's not that bad. It's mostly the first bucket warming up."

Parnevik missed the cut at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and at his next three events, but his stock has since moved in the right direction. The Swede, who turned 42 on Wednesday, was a world-class player through the 1990s and into the new century, but he has not won since the 2001 Honda Classic and traces his decline to hip surgery the previous September.

"I played too long with a hip injury and started hooking the ball so badly there for a while," he said. "Even though I won four or five months after the surgery, it was not pretty. I really haven't got back into the feel of driving it the way I was earlier but, once in a while, they do go straight and then I can play well."

PLAYER OF THE MONTH: For the 10th time in his career, Phil Mickelson has been named the PGA TOUR Player of the Month. Only Tiger Woods, with 23, has won Player of the Month more times than Mickelson. Vijay Singh, with nine monthly honors, is third on the list.

Mickelson opened February by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, posting scores of 65-67-70-66--268. He followed that up by finished second in the Nissan Open, carding rounds of 66-65-69-68--268. He closed out his month by finishing tied for 17th in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship.

PUTTERING AROUND: What's more amazing -- that Mark Calcavecchia took only 23 putts Friday in the PODS Championship, or that he was using a Ping putter that he bought himself.

Pros get free stuff all the time. Calc represents Ping.

''By the way, this is the sixth putter in six rounds,'' he said, the start of what resembled a standup routine. ''Paid $256.18 for it at a Bob Evans. No, not Bob Evans. What do you call that place? Edwin Watts. I ended up buying this, a Gators hat and a skirt for my honey.''

He paused to wink at his wife, Brenda, who was Brenda Nardecchia until she married Mark Calcavecchia.

''I couldn't make a putt from me to your head,'' he said as the monologue continued. ''That's 4 feet, 2 inches. Shotlink can verify that.''

Time for a quick question.

''Any chance Ping will get you a refund?''

''I called and asked,'' he said. ''They're checking on it.''

Calcavecchia was looking for a long putter, but the store only had about three of them and he didn't like any of the choices. Maybe it was a good thing. He tried one Sunday at The Honda Classic.

''Right when I bend over to stick a tee in the ground on the first hole, the wind starts blowing 40 mph. I'm there with his thing up to my chest. I almost whiffed one. Finally snapped it in half after the 16th I was so fed up. The good thing is that I now had two pieces I could throw in the lake. But I made some today. Maybe the curse is over.''

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