By Brett Avery
The Fantasy Insider
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

There’s no use spending hours poring through the statistics.

And watching the telecasts for even minute hints into a player’s psyche is useless.

Welcome to Segment Four of Salary Cap Cup, a.k.a. the hell segment.

Counting to 10 isn’t anywhere near enough to help someone regain their senses after the last few weeks. If you’re anywhere near the top of the Segment Four standings, you’re either living an extremely clean life or the darts are hitting the right spots on the entry lists.

The only thing that’ll seemingly work for most of us is to allow another four weeks to whiz off the calendar and begin pining for January’s kickoff to the 2007 season.

C’mon, people, Davis Love III? Nice enough guy, did the redesign work at Forest Oaks Country Club, plugging away despite the adversity of going winless for three seasons. Then he takes the Chrysler Classic at Greensboro the same week he’s 19th in Mike Vitti’s Heat Index.

That’s 19th, as in down three slots of the previous week.

Then there’s D.J. Trahan. Another eminently likeable guy, good stick but he’s struggling just to keep the top 125 in sight. Then he wins the Southern Farm Bureau Classic two weeks ago, the same week he’s 234th in the Heat Index.

Hey, missing 17 of 29 cuts will make a player do some desperate things. But winning from 234th place in the Heat Index?

Can you even claim that someone in 234th on any list has heat?

Good thing this is a family column and a wholesome website. That helps The Fantasy Insider summon the fortitude to avoid the potty-mouth language at his fingertips.

This much is clear: There’s going to be a lot of chalk flying around this week. There are precious few legal ways to beat the house in Las Vegas, site of this week’s Frys.com Open, so going with the odds-on favorites might be the only recourse for keeping the sanity.

Pick One: Jim Furyk ($300,000). With the exception of a tie for 29th in the PGA Championship (and that seems like a year and a half ago), this guy’s not been outside a top 10 since the U.S. Open. Combine that with his record in Las Vegas (three wins among six top 10s) and it’s the perfect storm. C’mon, jump on the bandwagon!

Balance: $700,000.

Pick Two: Ryan Moore ($254,500). Back-to-back ties for sixth, the most recent last week at Greensboro, give him four spots in the top 12 since the PGA. A third-round blowup here cost him dearly last year and replicating that tie for 16th this time around would be a major disappointment.

Balance: $445,500.

Pick Three: Ryan Palmer ($186,250). On the theory that Love III presaged his Greensboro victory with a tie for fourth in the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, this guy had an out-of-the-blue solo fifth last week in Greensboro. He tied for 12th last year in Vegas.

Balance: $259,250.

Pick Four: Harrison Frazar ($160,250). Just keeps banging away at contention (six top 25s in his last eight starts, to the B.C. Open ). Two other factors should make him almost as popular a choice as Furyk: a) a tie for third last year and share of second the previous year at Vegas and b) this price.

Balance: $99,000.

Pick Five: Charley Hoffman ($75,000). Perhaps TFI’s ridden this guy a bit too hard or too far but he still likes the possibilities. Scoring is Job One this week and he’s ninth in driving distance and 10th in par breakers, an intoxicating mixture.

Balance: $24,000.

Hey, buddy, can you spare $985,750? Loved them but ran out of slots or into the salary cap:

Chris DiMarco ($293,500). A quality pick in this field for his first visit to this venue since a tie for 33rd three years ago. Don’t look now, but he still needs to pop a big check or two for a spot in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola ($1,514,447, 46th).

Dean Wilson ($257,750). Straight out of the hat. Seriously. That tie for second a few weeks ago in the Valero Texas Open is a nice indicator that he’s recovered the sea legs since his victory in The INTERNATIONAL. But more than anything this is gut instinct. (And that alone is reason enough to run in the other direction in Segment Four.)

Bo Van Pelt ($225,250). TFI jumped off his bandwagon about May but he’s thinking of climbing back aboard for the stretch run. The reason? TFI figures that last-round 82 at the 84 LUMBER Classic shook some sense into the guy.

Nick Watney ($134,250). The last two months he’s either in the top 10 or misses the cut. The fact that he had one of those top 10s at the Reno-Tahoe Open -- and tied for sixth here last year -- shows he can handle this week’s distractions.

Troy Matteson ($75,000). Showed a ton of promise beginning the year after graduating from the Nationwide Tour yet hasn't quite panned out until the last few weeks. It isn¹t too late to lock up a top-125 spot (and he tied for 18th in Reno-Tahoe).

Salary Cap Cup results for Chrysler Championship of Greensboro: The main lineup of Carl Pettersson ($0, missed cut), Lucas Glover ($151,250, tied sixth), Shigeki Maruyama ($0, missed cut), Marco Dawson ($11,542, tied 52nd) and Charley Hoffman ($14,900, tied 43rd) earned $177,692 and placed 11,502nd. Through Week 40 it totals $3,884,379 and ranks 3,184th. Not the best of weeks.

The "Hey, buddy" backup lineup of Jerry Kelly ($0, missed cut), Ted Purdy ($27,750, tied 31st), Brad Faxon ($0, missed cut), Duffy Waldorf ($0, did not start) and Chris Riley ($0, missed cut) earned $27,750 and placed 23,939th. Through Week 40 it totals $1,610,989 and ranks 18,917th. Not much above the worst of weeks. Sheesh!

Week 40 winner: Wonder Boys $2,024,284.

Segment Four leader: Can buy game $7,093,624.

Have a question or comment for TFI? Send it to him at brettavery@aol.com.