By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM

LEMONT, Ill. -- Robert Allenby has it all figured out.

The Aussie knows he needs to finish fifth or better to advance to the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola for the fourth time since it became the finale of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.

Allenby also feels certain that would take him inside the top 10 in the standings for the International Team for the Presidents Cup when the qualification period ends on Sunday.

Allenby has taken a big step in the right direction over the first two rounds of the BMW Championship. He fired a bogey-free 67 on Friday and is tied for fifth at 6 under, five strokes off the lead held by Mark Wilson and Justin Rose.

"I'm just sort of staying where I need to be," Allenby said. "Hopefully on the weekend I can just play a little bit better. But I'm putting well, gaining more confidence every day. All I can do is just go out there and play. ...

“I know what I've got to do, it's just a matter of focusing on each hole and each shot, and ... I just want to improve on my score every day. So far, so good, so hopefully tomorrow will be a good one."

Allenby is locked in a tight battle with several other Aussies for the final spots on Greg Norman's team to play at the Presidents Cup in November. Geoff Ogilvy, who is 5 under through 36 holes at Cog Hill, currently ranks 10th in the standings. Allenby is 14th and Aaron Baddeley, who is even par, ranks 15.

And John Senden, who ranks 23rd, owns solo fourth at the BMW Championship after Friday’s 66 left him 8 under.

The top 10 in the standings, which are based on the Official World Golf Ranking, on Sunday automatically qualify. Norman will complete his team with two Captain's picks on Sept. 27.

Allenby isn't looking at the leaderboards to see where his mates stand, though.

"I don't care what they shoot," he said. "I can only worry about myself. I can't control their destiny, I can only control my own. Obviously I've come here to try and play as good as I can and first of all make next week. That's my No. 1 goal. And then my second goal is to make The Presidents Cup.

“I figure that if I take care of the first goal, it'll take care of the second. I feel like I'm playing pretty good. Just got to keep scoring well, that's all."

Allenby, who has won twice at Royal Melbourne, didn't make the International team in 1998, which was the last time the Presidents Cup was played at Royal Melbourne. He calls it a "major, major disappointment," and added "I've already had the experience of missing out, so I'm going to do everything I can to try and get back in there."

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. -- Robert Allenby probably isn’t going to win the AT&T National, but he produced the best shot from the final round so far with a hole-in-one one the par-3 14th.

It’s even more impressive when you consider the hole is playing as the third-most difficult on the golf course today … not to mention is 194 yards.

The celebration was short-lived however -- Allenby bogeyed the next hole. Allenby is 5 under on the round and 8 under for the week as he plays the final hole.

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. -- Robert Allenby is putting on a charge, but he’s quickly running out of holes at 6 under through 14 holes. That has the Aussie, along with three others, including Jeff Overton and K.J. Choi, within two of Nick Watney, who is on the ninth hole as we speak.

Watney’s co-leader at the start of the day, Rickie Fowler, hasn’t been able to recover since making double bogey on the second hole and a bogey two holes later.

While Fowler was good outside of 10 feet the first three rounds of the tournament, he’s missed three birdie opportunities near that range so far in the final round, including a 9-footer on the first hole and two more in the 10-15 foot range on Nos. 6 and 7.

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Tavistock Cup, which since 2004 has been an interclub match between Isleworth’s and Lake Nona’s golf professional members, will have a different look this week.

For the first time, four clubs will compete for the Tavistock Cup, with 24 players involved in the competition. The first round of the two-day tournament at Isleworth Golf & Country Club begins in less than an hour (10:50 a.m. ET).

Monday’s format will consist of six matches of four-ball ( see schedule below). Tuesday’s competition will be singles matches.

Isleworth and Lake Nona will be two of the clubs in the competition, along with Albany and Queenwood. Albany is a new luxury resort community in The Bahamas and Queenwood is an exclusive private members’ club in the Surrey countryside near London.

Tiger Woods, fresh off his final-round 66 that bumped him up to 10th place at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship on Sunday, will compete for Team Albany. Reigning U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell leads Team Lake Nona ( team rosters below).

Tavistock Cup contestants play for prize money, team hole-in-one prizes and the title of World Golf And Country Club Champion.

The two-tournament will be broadcast live on the Golf Channel starting at Noon ET.

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TAVISTOCK TEAMS

 

TEAM ALBANY	TEAM ISLEWORTH	TEAM LAKE NONA	TEAM QUEENWOOD
Arjun Atwal	Robert Allenby	Ross Fisher	Thomas Bjorn
Ernie Els	Stuart Appleby	Retief Goosen	Darren Clarke
Trevor Immelman	Brian Davis	Peter Hanson	David Howell
Ian Poulter	J.B. Holmes	Graeme McDowell	Soren Kjeldsen
Justin Rose	Sean O’Hair	Henrik Stenson	Paul McGinley
Tiger Woods	Lee Janzen	Oliver Wilson	Adam Scott

 

MONDAY’S FOUR-BALL MATCHES

 

1	Arjun Atwal-Tiger Woods (Albany)		Thomas Bjorn-Adam Scott (Queenwood)
2	Robert Allenby-Stuart Appleby (Isleworth)		Peter Hanson-Henrik Stenson (Lake Nona)
3	Ian Poulter-Justin Rose (Albany)		Retief Goosen-Graeme McDowell (Lake Nona)
4	Brian Davis-J.B. Holmes (Isleworth)		Soren Kjeldsen-Paul McGinley (Queenwood)
5	Lee Janzen-Sean O’Hair (Isleworth)		Ross Fisher-Oliver Wilson (Lake Nona)
6	Ernie Els-Trevor Immelman (Albany)		Darren Clarke-David Howell (Queenwood)

MARANA, Ariz. -- No one will have played in all 13 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championships when the opening matches get under way on Wednesday.

Three players have only missed one, though, and are playing in their 12th this week. The answer to that trivia question? Well, you’re right if you said Retief Goosen, Stewart Cink and Padraig Harrington.

Another nine players have played in 11 Accenture Match Play Championships. But only six of those players are competing this week – Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Robert Allenby, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els and Lee Westwood.

Among the players missing are some pretty interesting names in Vijay Singh, Stuart Appleby, Justin Leonard and David Toms, who won the 2005 Accenture Match Play Championship. The first three have played 11 times previously while Toms has made 10 starts.

MORE FEDEXCUP: Complete Standings | Weekly Leaders A FIELD DIVIDED: This week, the PGA TOUR will be players will be split between the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun. TOUR pros rated inside the top 66 in the Official World Golf Ranking are in the 64-man Match Play field. Being ranked that high comes with its benefits, as every player in the field at the Accenture Match Play Championship is guaranteed 22.5 FedExCup points – even if they are eliminated in the first round. One match victory will guarantee a player 46.56 FedExCup points, and two wins – a berth in the round of 16 – will net a player a minimum 68.25 points.

Accenture Match Play points breakdown

550 points – Win	101 points – T5 (loss in the round of eight)
315 points – Runner-up	68.25 points – T9 (loss in the round of 16)
200 points – Third place	46.56 points – T17 (second round loss)
140 points – Fourth place	22.50 points – T33 (loss in the first round)

Conversely, those playing in the Mayakoba will have to battle through four rounds to earn any points, with the winner adding 250 to his season total. To get the same 22.5 points guaranteed to all Match Play competitors, a golfer will need to finish solo 26th or better. To exceed the 46.56-point mark, they will need a solo sixth place finish and to beat a 68.25 point showing, they will need a solo fourth place finish. More on FedExCup point distribution can be found by clicking here. BEST NEW ARRIVALS: A pair of major winners (Ben Curtis and Retief Goosen) and one of the world’s best without a major (Paul Casey) made their debuts in the FedExCup standings this week in a tie for 115th with 56 points. The trio finished tied for 12th last week at Riviera Country Club in the Northern Trust Open. Goosen and Casey were making their season debuts while Curtis was playing in his third event after missing cuts at the Farmers Insurance Open and Waste Management Phoenix Open. Louis Oosthuizen and Robert Karlsson made their debuts as PGA TOUR members last week and finished tied for 62nd at Riviera Country Club. With eight FedExCup points each, they enter the standings tied for 184th. Casey, Goosen, Oosthuizen and Karlsson will tee it up at the Accenture Match Play Championship this week. BIGGEST MOVERS: Ryan Moore, who withdrew from his first start in 2011 and tied for 73rd in his second, vaulted 131 spots in the standings from 190th to 59th when he tied for fourth at the Northern Trust Open. In that fourth-place tie and also making a triple-digit leap was Robert Allenby, who moved from 173rd to a tie for 57th (116 spots). Also making large strides were Fred Couples (143rd to 61st), Cameron Tringale (119th to 175th) and Kevin Stadler (149th to 97th). NOTABLE DROPS: Nick O’Hearn and Kevin Kisner, who were both idle last week, each fell 17 spots in the standings dropping from 139th to 156th. Though still early in the season, it’s interesting to note that 10 golfers dropped below the 125-man cutline for the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Falling the furthest were idle veterans Stephen Ames and Jesper Parnevik, who dropped from a tie for 124th into a tie for 139th in the FedExCup standings. MORE ON LAST WEEK’S WINNER: With his victory at the Northern Trust Open, Aaron Baddeley moved from 37th to 4th in the FedExCup standings. His best regular season finish in the four-year history of the FedExCup is 18th place. As he continues to get comfortable in his transition from the Stack and Tilt back to his more natural swing, Baddeley has made four cuts in five starts with his last two outings being a tie for sixth at Pebble Beach and a victory at Riviera. Badds is seventh on the TOUR in scoring average and 11th in greens in regulation in spite of the fact that he’s only hitting 53 percent of fairways. Baddeley will look to continue his strong play this week at the Mayakoba Golf Classic.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – One of the themes for the 2011 PGA TOUR season is the New Breed vs. the Establishment.

And right now during the final round of the Northern Trust Open, it’s Establishment 3, New Breed 1.

The leader, Fred Couples, is 51 years old while Vijay Singh, who is alone in third at 10 under and two strokes off the pace, turns 48 on Tuesday. And don’t forget Robert Allenby, who is along at 9 under – he hits the big 4-0 in July.

The young whippersnapper of the four is Aaron Baddeley, who is 29. He held the overnight lead by one but trails Couples by the same amount after the AARP’s favorite golfer birdied his first three holes.

A year ago today, Couples won the ACE Group Classic. Will he become the third oldest winner on the PGA TOUR later today? – Helen Ross

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – No matter what happens when the first round of the Northern Trust Open is completed on Friday morning, there will be more players tied for the lead than after any round of any tournament on the PGA TOUR since such records started being kept in 1970.

The current tally is nine – John Senden, Martin Laird, Robert Allenby, Spencer Levin, Aaron Baddeley, Ben Martin, Bill Haas, Carl Pettersson and J.B. Holmes. And Peter Tomasulo could make it 10 if he converts a 13-footer for birdie at the 18th hole when he resumes his first round at 7:45 a.m.

The previous record was eight.