As the last full-field event of 2006, this week’s $5.3 million Chrysler Championship at the Westin Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Tampa, Fla., is a slap-in-the-face last call that delivers a figurative jolt of ear-blasting alarm combined with a triple espresso.

Yeah, if focus and urgency are lacking this week, you’re obviously a terrific candidate for a role in the next “Dawn of the Dead” remake. Either that, or you have a poker face worthy of any No-Limit card game.

The potential permutations in the money list are too numerous to recite here, but a breakdown (by earnings) shows that field includes these players:

•The Cruisers: 21 of the top 30 (only the top 30 play in the season finale next week, the TOUR Championship);
• The Determined: 9 of the next 10 (top 40 get into the Masters) and 35 of the next 40 (top 70 earn spots in 2007 invitational tournaments such as the Memorial Tournament, Bank of America Colonial and Bay Hill Invitational;
•The Pressers: 37 players ranked between 71st and 125th (the cutoff for full ’07 exempt status);
• The Hopeful: 15 of the next 25 (players 126-150 earn conditional status that allows unlimited sponsor exemptions;
•The Procrastinators: 23 players ranging from Tag Ridings at No. 151 to Phil Tataurangi at 230th;
•Miscellaneous: 1, PGA club professional Rod Perry.

Need the TOUR Insider point out that the stakes are high and the shakes are likely? He didn’t think so.

Last year: With a final-round even-par 71, Carl Pettersson won his first PGA TOUR title by one stroke over hard-charging Chad Campbell at Westin Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. Campbell made five birdies down the stretch, but he couldn’t catch Pettersson, who converted a couple of clutch par putts to hold on for a 9-under 275 total, the highest winning score in the tournament’s five-year history.

How he did it: Pars. Pettersson made more than anyone else over four days (57), which works splendidly on a difficult golf course that intermittent breezes made even trickier. The winner was perfect on sand saves and suffered just three bogeys over 72 holes, thanks mostly to hitting 72 percent of his greens in regulation, third overall.

Strange but true: South Africans Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, in this week’s field, have one win between them on the PGA TOUR in the last two years. (Goosen won the 2005 International.)

True and only somewhat strange: A player has successfully defended his title six times this year – five by Tiger Woods.

Idiosyncratic stat: Three men were perfect this year making the cut – all Champions Tour players. Ben Crenshaw was 2-for-2 and Chip Beck and Wayne Levi cashed in their only starts.

Worth knowing:

•Three players have two top-5 finishes in the brief five-year history of the Chrysler Championship: Vijay Singh, Chad Campbell and Joe Durant, the winner of last week’s FUNAI Classic at Walt Disney World Resort. Four more have multiple top-10 finishes: defending champion Carl Pettersson, Brad Faxon, Steve Lowery, and Craig Barlow.

Troy Matteson earned his first TOUR title in Las Vegas. (Greenwood/WireImage)

•If you’re rookie Troy Matteson, you have to keep playing, what with a win, a tie for second and four straight top-10s on the autumn resume. Matteson is 42nd on the money list – and the top 40 go to Augusta National Golf Club. Matteson had a chance at the FUNAI Classic to become the first player since David Duval in 1997 to win his first two TOUR titles in back to back weeks.

•After dropping from second to a tie for 43rd over the weekend at the FUNAI Classic, Tag Ridings, sitting 151st on the money list, needs a big week – and might be at the perfect place to have one. The previous two years at the Chrysler Championship he’s put up gut-check finishes of third and 11th, respectively.

•Gotta feel for bubble boy Bubba Dickerson this week. He’s 125th on the money list and isn’t likely to get into the Chrysler Championship as the eighth alternate. But gotta feel worse for Brian Bateman, the fifth alternate, who is 126th. Meanwhile, six of the next eight, starting with John Cook at 127, are in.

• Even Phil Tataurangi has something to play for at the Copperhead Course, despite being 230th on the money list, lowest in the field. Playing in ’06 on a major medical extension in which he had 21 events to earn $616,722, Tataurangi needs to finish solo second to retain his card for ’07. The Chrysler Championship will be his 21st tournament.

•Two notable former British Open winners are done for the season and face status issues for 2007. David Duval’s exemption from his 2001 Open victory has expired. He can play next year using his one-time exemption for ranking among the top 25 in career earnings – and he still has his top 50 exemption to fall back on. John Daly isn’t so lucky. He’s 192nd on the money list and just 76th in career earnings. Of course, the popular lug should have no trouble getting sponsor exemptions.

•The Charles Schwab Cup Championship will determine the money title on the Champions Tour this week, but Fred Funk registered a resounding victory already as the top money winner among Champions Tour players on the PGA TOUR, which he should have done given that he just turned 50 in June and this week is playing in his 29th event at the Chrysler Championship. Funk is 46th in earnings, well ahead of Jay Haas, who is 199th (in seven starts). Loren Roberts (in 4 starts) ended up 208th. In all there were 10 Champions Tour players who made a cut this year on the PGA TOUR.

TI’s power ranking for the Chrysler Championship: 1. Retief Goosen, 2. Troy Matteson, 3. Vijay Singh, 4. Frank Lickliter, 5. Tag Ridings.

Parting shot: “You're always doubting, especially when you go through some periods like I went through at the beginning of this year. I was going crazy. I felt I wasn't playing terrible golf, but I was finishing 40th to 60th every week, and it was just driving me nuts. You always go through periods of doubt. The guys are so good and you wonder if you can still cut the mustard. You just keep grinding, you keep playing, you keep working on your game, and hopefully you'll start to see some positive signs.” – PGA TOUR veteran and now 4-time winner Joe Durant.