Stuart Appleby has won the Shell Houston Open twice (1999, 2006) but he will be fighting to make the cut after carding a nine on the par-4 fifth.

Appleby smacked his first two tee shots into the water left of the fairway on the 480-yard hole. It's easy to do -- the yardage dares players to cut the corner -- but two of Appleby's drives landed in the lake.

Appleby, hitting five, found the fairway with his fifth shot and eventually holed out for a nine, dropping him to near the bottom of the leaderboard.

Prime scoring conditions has the field going low, but Stuart Appleby is losing spots left and right. He began the day just three shots back, but four bogeys in five holes has him all the way down to 3 under for the tournament. At this rate, he's going to have a very early tee time on Sunday.

STUART APPLEBY: Scorecard | Shot Tracker

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.

TAVISTOCK TEAMS

MONDAY’S FOUR-BALL MATCHES

● DIFFERENT CONDITIONS, DIFFERENT PUTTER: With the move to the Florida Swing -- and Bermudagrass -- a couple of weeks ago, Ian Poulter decided to change his putter, moving from a Rife putter to a Scotty Cameron, which he'll continue to use this week at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.

Poulter

"I just fancied a change," Poulter said. "From time to time you just need to change."

The major difference between the Scotty Cameron and the Rife putter is that the Cameron has tiny grooves on the face and the ball comes off the club faster than the Rife -- something that's important on greens rolling at only a 10 1/2 or 11 on the Stimpmeter at TPC Blue Monster at Doral.

"It feels like it's rolling pretty good," Poulter said. "It's just different so I have to get used to it. I'll give it a couple of weeks." -- Brian Wacker

● MAGIC WAND: Rory Sabbatini beamed about his new TaylorMade Ghost 770 putter after winning The Honda Classic. Sounds like it will be as much of a fixture as his new wide-brimmed hats going forward.

Sabbatini

“You know, it's actually quite bizarre. I've never quite had as much confidence in a new putter as I have in this one. After picking it up last week down in México and hitting a few putts with it, right away it just felt amazing to me,” said Sabbatini, who ranked T2 in putts per round at PGA National.

“Was doing a little bit of work with it during the week, but obviously not using it during the tournament; and then getting here this week and doing some practice with it, it really just felt phenomenal. I can honestly say I think it was probably one of the smartest decisions I've ever made in my golf game.”

As for how the putter arrived in time for the Honda, that’s a story in itself. Check it out here.

● BACK-TO-BACK: Not only did TaylorMade score with Sabbatini’s putter saga, it also got a second consecutive TOUR win with the R11 white driver.

● DELOFTING: Last week’s high winds at PGA National meant some one-off changes in bags, including Stuart Appleby using a Callaway RAZR Hawk driver with 7.5 degrees of loft, lower than his usual. He finished in a tie for 10th.

● UPGRADE: As David Dusek wrote on Golf.com, Zach Johnson has the new Titleist ProV1x in his bag this week at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. He had been using the 2009 model.

● FREE STUFF? MAYBE: Remember last year when Callaway ran a promotion where buyers of a new Callaway driver could get it free if Phil Mickelson won the Masters? Srixon is getting into the act this year with a golf ball giveaway centered around Graeme McDowell’s chances at Augusta National. Read about it here.

Of course you might recall that Mickelson did win at Augusta, and consequently Callaway ended up giving away more than a million bucks’ worth of drivers. –John Schwarb

What’s been the biggest obstacle to low scores here in the opening round?

”Mother Nature was probably the biggest obstacle in shooting 5‑ or 6‑under par,” said Stuart Appleby, who is in the clubhouse at 2-under 68.

If there’s someone who knows how to play in the wind, it’s Appleby, who grew up playing in Australia. Not that it makes any easier.

“I guess maybe one of the secrets was I was not thinking about that too much. I knew it was pretty difficult,” Appleby added. “Still doesn't make you feel comfortable. Very difficult to sort of get your lines on tee shots; one minute you're hitting driver, and the next day you're hitting hybrid off the tee, or less.

“Putting was very difficult today. There was definitely some breeze pushing the ball, a lot of grain on the greens. But just ‑‑ it was tough. Played all right. I wouldn't call it brilliant, but I guess just consistent enough where I didn't get on the wrong side of dropping a shot every 30 minutes, which you easily could do.”

Spencer Levin, who is one shot clear of Appleby and in the lead for now, took it a step further, saying that the par-5 third hole was “the only birdie hole on the whole course.”

Levin made three more birdies on his round, but the point is well taken.

“I think you just have to be prepared to know that you're going to have to get a few balls up‑and‑down,” Levin added. “That's kind of the way it is, no matter how you play.

“You get kind of in a par mode really where you just have to kind of take what the course gives you. If you hit a good drive, you don't want to get too cute and try to go at a pin that you might shouldn't and then make a bogey because you know pars are going to be a good score.”

Judging by the wind, which has been consistently blowing in the 20-plus mph range, talking about par isn’t rhetoric either.

“It was blowing so hard me and J.J. [Henry] were saying, you could feel on 18; the fountains were I don't know how far behind the green, but you could feel the mist almost on the third shot,” Levin said. “It was blowing hard out there, it really was.” -- Brian Wacker

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.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Fred Couples is playing with two potential members of his Presidents Cup team  this afternoon in Bubba Watson and Anthony Kim. He might want to be keeping an eye on the competition, though.

Of the 12 players at the top of the leaderboard right now who have finished their first rounds in the Northern Trust Open, six  are eligible to play for the International Team. Not to mention, five of them are Australians – which should play well when the matches are played at Royal Melbourne Nov. 14-20.

Aussies John Senden, Robert Allenby and Aaron Baddeley are among the six players tied for the lead at 4 under. Two more from Down Under -- Geoff Ogilvy and Stuart Appleby – finished at 2 under while Fiji’s Vijay Singh is among those who shot 68s.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Judging by the leaderboard, the chances of having a first-time winner at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am are looking pretty good.

Only three of the top 15 players on the leaderboard – all within five strokes of the lead – have PGA TOUR victories to their credit.  The last first-time winner on TOUR came at the Bob Hope Classic three weeks ago when Jhonattan Vegas prevailed in a playoff.

Aaron Baddeley, who is tied for seventh, has two PGA TOUR wins, the last coming in 2007. And Stuart Appleby, who is tied for 11th, ended a four-year victory drought when he made the inaugural Greenbrier Classic his ninth TOUR win.

Kevin Sutherland, who joins Appleby in that five-way tie at 7 under, has one win to his credit – the 2002 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. – Helen Ross