PGA TOUR rookie Harris English led the list of eight players who qualified Monday for this year's British Open. He also set a course record in the process.

The qualifier, the only one held in the United States, took place Monday at Gleneagles Country Club in the Dallas suburb of Plano. As in previous years, it comes in between the PGA TOUR's two tournaments in the North Texas area, last week's HP Byron Nelson Championship and this week's Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial.

English opened the 36-hole qualifier with a course-record 10-under 60 in the first round, with a string of six consecutive birdies at one point. He followed with a bogey-free 63 in the second round for a two-round total of 17 under. That was three shots better than Greg Owen.

Besides English and Owen, the other six qualifiers are Stephen Ames, Andres Romero, Justin Hicks, Bob Estes, Daniel Chopra and James Driscoll.

Another PGA TOUR rookie, Russell Knox, was tied with Estes, Chopra and Driscoll at 9 under but was the odd man out in the four-man playoff.

QUALIFIERS FOR BRITISH OPEN

Pos	Player	Country	Round 1	Round 2	Score
1	Harris English	USA	60	63	17 under
2	Greg Owen	England	66	61	13 under
T3	Stephen Ames	Canada	69	61	10 under
T3	Andres Romero	Argentina	67	63	10 under
T3	Justin Hicks	USA	67	63	10 under
T6	Bob Estes	USA	66	65	9 under
T6	Daniel Chopra	Sweden	64	67	9 under
T6	James Driscoll	USA	66	65	9 under

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Stephen Ames withdrew from the Waste Management Phoenix Open prior to the start of the first round.

Ames, who cited a bad back, was replaced by Scott Brown, a PGA TOUR rookie. The Nationwide Tour grad has missed the cut in his first three starts on TOUR.

Gary Christian is now the first alternate.

The back nine at TPC Summerlin played 1.5 strokes easier in relation to par than the front nine during the first round of the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. That average is skewing even more in the favor of the home nine Friday, at least with those posting the day’s best scores. Six players have reached the clubhouse with scores of 6 under or better in their second rounds. Those players are a combined 30 under on the back nine and just 14 under on the front. Trevor Immelman Is putting together a back nine that has him fitting right in. With five consecutive birdies on holes 12 through 16, the 2008 Masters Champion has the best round of the afternoon to this point and is three shots out of the lead shared by Kevin Na, Charlie Wi and Jhonattan Vegas. Immelman, who hasn’t notched a top-10 finish since the 2008 TOUR Championship, is now tied for 12th, and has 10 holes remaining in his second round. Joining him at 5 under this afternoon is D.J. Trahan. Trahan entered the day at 1 over and had five birdies on the back nine at TPC Summerlin to move inside the current projected cut line. Currently there are 11 players at 3 under or better in the afternoon wave. Of those 11, nine started their rounds on the back nine. Only Joe Ogilvie (-3 through 10) and Stephen Ames (-3 through 8) are bucking the trend.

Ever play in a charity scramble where you get a free throw of your golf ball? Well, that wasn’t exactly on the rules sheet for Monday’s Telus Skins Game in Alberta, Canada, but avid cricket player Paul Casey saw a 132-yard par-3 and could only think of one thing.

“I played a lot of cricket growing up and I am good at throwing balls … it just looked like the perfect yardage and I thought ‘why not,’” Casey told The Canadian Press.

Playing in a group with Jhonattan Vegas, Lucas Glover, Anthony Kim and Canadian Stephen Ames, Casey figured he’d make things interesting with the throw – which sailed over a pond and landed on the green, some 30 feet from the hole. He then hit a wedge which landed closer to the pin, but spun into the rough.

“I was a little disappointed I didn't get the wedge shot closer than my throw,” he said.

He had hoped to get his partners to bet him on whether he could throw the ball on the green – and his partners wisely declined. In the official action, Jhonattan Vegas was the big winner with $55,000 won on the first nine holes of competition.

The event raised $28,000 for charity on the first of two days of play, which concludes Tuesday.

MORE FEDEXCUP: Complete Standings | Weekly Leaders After the TOUR dividing its membership between two events in two of the last three weeks, all active players reconvene at Innisbrook for the Transitions Championship. BUILDING MOMENTUM: We saw at the Honda Classic what a good result in an opposite field event can do when the schedule shifts back to a single-event week. Rory Sabbatini, who posted a 5-under 66 in the final round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic to slide into a tie for fifth, followed it up with a big victory at The Honda Classic. He currently sits at No. 5 in the FedExCup standings. Charles Howell III and Tommy Gainey each were in the top 20 in Mexico, then in the top 10 at PGA National. WHO’S NEXT?: Stephen Ames moved into a tie for third with a final-round 66 last week in Puerto Rico and tied for sixth last year at Innisbrook. He moved to 79th in the FedExCup standings and could make another moved with a good showing. Hunter Haas (FedExCup: 50th) has three consecutive top-35 finishes including a T3 last week in Puerto Rico while Bobby Gates (FedExCup: 113th) has finished T5 and solo sixth in the last two opposite field events. Keep an eye on these under-the-radar players with momentum this week. BEST NEW ARRIVAL: Aron Price made his first cut in four starts last week in Puerto Rico and entered the standings in 197th place. Price has just missed the Playoffs each of the last two years, finishing 129th and 136th. BIGGEST MOVERS: Puerto Rico Open champion Michael Bradley bounded 114 spots up the standings from 147th to 33rd with his 250-point winner’s share. Troy Matteson, who fell to Bradley in a playoff, moved up 79 spots from 112th to 43rd. Ames and George McNeil also made 50-plus spot jumps from Puerto Rico. At the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, Adam Scott, with new putter in hand, earned 100 points from his T6 finish and moved 61 spots from 126th to 65th. Padraig Harrington and Tiger Woods, each tied for 10th, moved up 60 and 59 spots respectively. Woods is now 93rd, while Harrington sits at 101st in the standings. NOTABLE DROPS: 2010 q-school medalist Billy Mayfair slipped from 111th to 126th after taking last week off following a missed cut at The Honda Classic. Also dropping out of the coveted top 125 spots were David Toms, Chris Stroud, Charlie Wi, and Lucas Glover among others. MORE ON LAST WEEK’S WINNERS: WGC-Cadillac Championship champion Nick Watney climbed to No. 2 in the FedExCup standings, the highest position of his career. Watney, you may remember, was a tournament-best 10-under on the weekend last year at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. That performance moved him from 28th to 12th in the final standings. An early favorite in this season’s FedExCup competition, the victory will help get Watney into a better position as the TOUR season continues. Bradley’s victory in Puerto Rico was the fourth of his career and first since 2009, also at the Puerto Rico Open. Bradley has never made the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, finishing 139th and 145th in the last two regular seasons. His 298 points leave him just eight points away from his 306-point total each of those years, and less than 100 points shy of what it took to make the Playoffs in each year. -Chris Dunham

DORAL, Fla. -- Francesco Molinari and Anthony Kim took a break from their preparation for the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship on Monday evening to entertain the media and promote the new Nike 20XI ball.

Nike's braintrust, in collaboration with engineers at DuPont, took four years to develop the technology for the 20XI. Instead of a rubber core, the ball uses a resin material that is designed to produce more distance, straighter ball flight and more controlled shots. 

“I have never been more excited about a new golf ball innovation than I am now,” said Rock Ishii, Nike Golf’s Product Development Director for golf balls. “For many years, golf ball development has primarily been focused on the number of layers with a solid rubber core.

"We believe that there wasn’t really anywhere else to go as far as technology advancement in these areas, and felt that the next window of opportunity was in the exploration of various materials for the core.”

In addition to Kim – who put the ball in play the same week he tested it -- and Molinari, Stephen Ames, Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover, Justin Leonard, Jamie Lovemark, Pablo Martin and Carl Pettersson are among other Nike athletes who have switched to the 20X1.

The new balls will be available to the general public on April 29. There are two in the series. The 20XI-X is optimized  for distance while the 20XI-S has a softer cover and offers better control around the greens.

D.A. Points turned in the wedge shot of the year so far on TOUR at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, using a 52-degree Ping Tour-W wedge for his Sunday holeout eagle on the 14th at Pebble.

Suffice to say, his gap wedge delivered better last week than he remembered on a similar shot a few years prior.

“It was a couple years ago, I was playing pretty well here and I was in the Top-10 and I was making a lot of

birdies,” Points said. “I came down there and I had a gap wedge, similar kind of shot and I spun it left off the green and rolled down the hill under the tree and I made double bogey.

“Most of the time we are worried about putting too much spin on it. This year we are trying to get as much spin on it so we can hold it up there.”

-- Speaking of ball spin, Nike introduced a new TOUR-level golf ball Tuesday, the 20XI. The conventional rubber core is replaced with a resin core, engineered to produce more distance and control. Nike says the ball has perimeter weighting between the lighter core and heavier outer layers.

The ball, which comes in distance and spin models, is being used by Stephen Ames, Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover, Anthony Kim, Justin Leonard, Jamie Lovemark, Francesco Molinari and Carl Pettersson, among others.

Whether Tiger Woods switches to the 20XI remains to be seen, though he is said to be considering it. He still plays the Nike Tour One.

-- Golfweek’s Gene Yasuda writes that Wilson Golf spent $4 million on research and development last year – five times what it spent five years ago – in order to help implement to a two-year product cycle. The company’s marketing message has been simplified, touting 61 major championships won with Wilson irons, and Kevin Streelman has been added to a stable of TOUR pros that includes Ricky Barnes and Padraig Harrington.

Wilson posted an entertaining YouTube video of commercial outtakes including Barnes. Look for the wedge-bouncing ball trick, similar to the old Woods Nike commercial, here.

-- What was in amateurs’ bags at the AT&T? TaylorMade said its R11 was the No. 1 driver, with 24 in play.

Bill Murray won the Pro-Am with new Titleist Vokey wedges. Check out the BM stamps on his custom clubs here .

--Odyssey just released their D.A.R.T. putters and E. Michael Johnson of Golf World writes that the company is making a handful of “TOUR-only” options including a mid-length version with a 400-gram head, a long version with a 450-gram head, a black PVD version and one with a red D.A.R.T. alignment device. Some of those putters may be put in play at Riviera.

-- In a Masters conference call this week, Phil Mickelson lent some insight into his bag.

On putting two drivers into play at Augusta:

“That particular year, I believe, was one of the first years, if not the first year, that the golf course was lengthened extraordinarily. I think that was the first year that a lot of length was added; tee boxes were moved back quite a few yards. And to combat that, I tried to get a driver that I could hit an initial 20 yards.

“Although I called one a draw driver and one a fade driver, the long driver was the driver that I drew. But I also hit it 20 to 25 yards longer than I did my regular, was a longer shaft and so forth. And I believe that it played a big factor in me winning the golf tournament.

“Now the driver that I have, is very similar to that distance. It might only be five or seven yards shorter than that driver, and so there's really not a benefit to putting another longer driver in play. And so that frees me up to add another club.”

On his wedges:

“I've set my wedges now -- I used to have as much as five wedges, as you know. And what I did was took the gap and sand wedge and kind of created a club in between.

“So every week now, I am set with four wedges. I have a 64 and a 60. I have a strong sand wedge. Which is about 54, 53 1/2, 54 degrees, and then I have a pitching wedge that's a 47 1/2, 48. So that allows me to add some other clubs longer in the bag.

“And usually at Augusta, I don't have a hybrid. I usually carry a 3-iron. And the reason for that is, if I'm not able to reach the par 5s, like 13 and 15, with a 3-iron or less, I usually don't want to go for it, anyways.

“And second, the additional length on No. 4 puts me a lot of times right between clubs, between a 4-iron and sometimes a 3-iron. And so having a 3-iron in the bag at Augusta is what has helped me the last couple of years in some of those in-between shots from 220 to 245.

“So that is usually how my setup, club setup, is. And I no longer play with five wedges. I've had four wedges now and the same wedges for the last couple of years.”

Tiger Woods has just teed off, and it’s a sure bet at least one fan in his massive gallery will be easy to spot. One young man in an orange Tony-the-Tiger suit was walking into the gates at TPC Boston, carrying the oversized head under his arm.

Marc Leishman really turned things around after that 77 he shot on Sunday. He fired a final-round 68 that got him back into red numbers for the tournament – and more importantly positioned him safely inside the top 70 projections at No. 58. A year ago, Leishman had to eagle the 72nd hole to earn his spot at the BMW Championship.

Stephen Ames, who was among the leaders through two rounds, is now fighting to make it to the BMW Championship. He shot 75 in the third round and is currently 1 over for the day and the tournament. That means he’s projected at 72nd so he needs to start making birdies.

If the tournament were to end right now, six players would have played their way to Cog Hill. There will be plenty of pros with their eyes on the projections when they sign their scorecards.

Garrett Willis has withdrawn due to illness. He started the week ranked 97th in the FedExCup and currently is projected two spots lower. So he’ll have several weeks to get well.

Another player who had to withdraw, Scott Verplank, is currently projected at No. 71, down 17 spots from 54th but still with a chance at advancing.

Stephen Ames went out in 30 and quickly climbed to the top of the leaderboard at 9 under. A birdie at the second hole, his 11th of the day, increased his lead to two strokes.

The Canadian fell just as quickly, though, when he bogeyed the fifth hole and made a double bogey at the par-5 seventh. He’s now tied for eighth at 7 under for the tournament and 3 under for the day.

Ames hit his tee shot left into the trees at No. 7 and his second into the fairway bunker. After his third, Ames was still 152 yards from the green. He was on in four and then three-putted from 30 feet for the double that left him in a tie for eighth.