By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM

CROMWELL, Conn. -- Joe Ogilvie withdrew from the Travelers Championship Friday morning with a back injury and could miss the rest of the season.

Following his opening-round 74 Thursday, Ogilvie went to the hospital for an MRI where it was discovered that he had a herniated disk in his back.

“May have played my last round on the PGA Tour for 2012,” Ogilvie said on Twitter. “Stupid on my part for playing hurt since Houston, but thought it was just age.”

Should Ogilvie miss the remainder of the year, he would be eligible for a major medical exemption for next season.

Prior to this week, Ogilvie, who also battled through a sore wrist last year, had missed three of his last four cuts.

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.

By Zak Kozuchowski, PGATOUR.COM

Overnight leader Vaughn Taylor has just teed off in the Reno-Tahoe Open, but he finds himself four shots back of current leader Scott Piercy, who just set the course record in Round 3 with an 11-under 61.

Piercy made a six-foot putt for eagle on the 616-yard closing par-5 to best the previous course record of 62, which had been shot three times (Bill Glasson, 2005; Joe Ogilvie 2006; Parker McLachlin, 2008).

Piercy birdied Nos. 2 though 9 at Montreux, and after birdies at Nos. 14 and 15, the 59 watch was on for the third-year PGA TOUR player. His lone bogey came at No. 17, a 464-yard par-4, effectively ending the threat.

Other big movers in Round 3 include TOUR rookie Jim Renner, who shot a 7-under 65 and is currently in third place. James Driscoll also went low with a 66 to move to 7 under.

By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. -- Despite a left wrist injury that will require an MRI, Joe Ogilvie finds himself in a familiar position at the AT& National.

A year after shooting a 66 in the first round at Aronimink, Ogilvie opened with a 67 Thursday to share the top spot. Coincidentally, he also led after the first round in 2007 when the event was played at Congressional.

”It sets up for my eye,” Ogilvie said of Aronimink. “And I'm smart enough to figure out this is a golf course where you can miss it in certain places in the fairway and kind of have angles, so if you do hit it in the rough, you can kind of scrape it on the green. And other than 10, I executed my game plan well in the sense of where I missed the shots because I know I'm going to miss a lot of shots. I just want to miss them in the right place.”

To Ogilvie’s point, despite hitting just 57 percent of his fairways, he still hit 72 percent of his greens in regulation. That helped open the door for four birdies and just one bogey.

“[The greens] are just tricky, a lot of hills and dales, and the pin placements today I thought were tough,” Ogilvie said. “The greens are very tricky, but they're true.”

FEDEXCUP: Standings | No. 1 watch | Weekly Leaders | Who’s up, who’s down? | FedExCup 101 | More notes By Chris Dunham, PGATOUR.COM If he wants to keep his FedExCup points lead for a sixth consecutive week, Bubba Watson will likely need a good showing at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance. With 12 players in the field this week with the potential to take the top spot from Watson, it will be interesting to see things unfold with PGATOUR.COM’s projected FedExCup points feature once play begins Thursday. HANDICAPPING THE FIELD: While Luke Donald and Mark Wilson are currently Nos. 2 and 3 in the FedExCup standings, three other names to watch for are K.J. Choi, Phil Mickelson and Matt Kuchar. Mickelson and Choi each have six top-10 finishes at Murifield Village while Kuchar has back-to-back-to-back top-10s. Click here for a breakdown of the 12 players who could move to No. 1 with a win this week. FUN FACT: Since the start of the FedExCup season, no player who won the memorial finished outside the top 15 in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Choi (5th, 2007), Kenny Perry (15th, 2008), Tiger Woods (1st, 2009) and Justin Rose (15th, 2010) all went on to have successful Playoffs after winning at Murifield Village. BIGGEST MOVERS: The two players who were left out of the playoff last week at TPC Four Seasons made the biggest jumps in the FedExCup standings. Joe Ogilvie and Ryuji Imada each picked up 162.5 FedExCup points for their tie for third at the HP Byron Nelson Championship with Ogilvie jumping 63 spots from 156th to 93rd and Imada making a 53-spot move from 138th to 79th. NOTABLE DROPS: A dozen players, all currently between 124th and 137th in the standings, fell nine spots in the latest standings. Among them are major champions Retief Goosen and David Duval. With Ryan Palmer and Keegan Bradley moving inside the top 30, Lucas Glover and Tommy Gainey were nudged to Nos. 31 and 32 respectively. MORE ON LAST WEEK’S WINNER: Last week, Keegan Bradley became the first rookie to ever win the HP Byron Nelson Championship and moved from 73rd to 20th in the FedExCup standings. The third member of the 2010 Nationwide Tour graduating class to win on TOUR this year, Bradley is currently ranked higher in the FedExCup standings than any of his classmates.

By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM

IRVING, Texas -- If you get a chance, check out Joe Ogilvie's scorecard in his first two rounds at TPC Four Seasons Report ( click here ). Make sure to give yourself plenty of time to comprehend it. Lots of colors are involved.

That's because Ogilvie's scorecard includes one eagle, 12 birdies, eight bogeys and one double bogey in addition to his 14 pars.

"Yeah, it looked like an Easter egg," Ogilvie said.

The most important number, though, was 4 under. That's where Ogilvie stands after his even-par 70 on Friday. That left him on the front page of the leaderboard when he walked off the course, and gives him the opportunity to post his second career TOUR win this week.

"I'm making way lot of mistakes, but I'm playing well," Ogilvie said. "I'm making mistakes because I'm playing very aggressive."

Ogilvie has needed just 26 putts in each of the first two rounds. He credits his ball-striking for getting him close looks at birdies

"I'm rolling it well and for me I'm hitting it extraordinarily well," Ogilvie said. "So I feel good around this place."

IRVING, Texas – Joe Ogilvie has birdied three consecutive holes and is now 7 under for the tournament, just one shot off the lead held by Ryan Palmer.

Palmer did lead by five shots at one point before Ogilvie heated up. Palmer also has suffered his first bogey at the day, at the par-4 15th. He’s now 3 under on his round and 8 under overall.

Ogilvie shot a 66 on Thursday and had a rollercoaster opening nine Friday. He’s 3 under for his round through 13 holes.

Ryuji Imada has had a productive morning. With one hole left in his round, Imada is 4 under for the day and 5 under overall. He’s on pace to shoot his lowest score on TOUR since January.

Teenage amateur Jordan Spieth continues to stay above the cut line. He’s 2 under through his first 10 holes and 3 under for the tournament. With half the field still yet to tee off in the second round, the projected cut line is 1 over.

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Last Wednesday, Denny Hamlin shot a career-low 81 at Kinloch Country Club outside Richmond.

Then Hamlin got down to business at Richmond Motor Speedway. He drove his FedEx Camry to victory in the NASCAR Nationwide Series event on Friday and finished second in the Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday night.

The 16-time Sprint Cup winner stepped outside his comfort zone again on Monday, playing in the pro-am at the Wells Fargo Championship. The result? One of Hamlin's three best rounds, an 88, that included a 41 on the back nine, despite a double bogey at No. 10, his first hole of the day.

And the team – captained by PGA TOUR veteran Joe Ogilvie -- went on to win the pro-am. Hamlin contributed on six holes.

"I had a bad three-hole stretch on (his second nine) that kind of destroyed everything but I still played within my handicap," said a satisfied Hamlin, who recovered from triple bogeys at Nos. 6 and 7 to par his last two holes for a net birdie and net eagle.

His professional partner came away impressed.

"He hasn't played very much at all, i think he only took up the game 30 months ago," Ogilvie said. "He's a 21 handicap. ... He loves it, so I think he's on his way to a 10 handicap maybe by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So his learning curve is great. He's a great guy and certainly a great representative of NASCAR."

Ogilvie says Hamlin's enthusiasm for the game, coupled with the mindset of an athlete, will accelerate that learning curve, too.

"At the end of the day, if you love golf, it makes the game a hell of a lot easier," Ogilvie said. "He loves it. He wants to get better. You take an athlete that's at the top of his game, they just have a different view of things.

"He wants to get better. he doesn't want to just go hack around at the golf course, he wants to get better. I think that's the way he probably drives as well."

Hamlin knows he has the edge in a stock car -- "I can tell you none of these golfers are going to come out and run a faster lap than me on a race track," he said. But the skill with which a pro like Ogilvie maneuvers a golf ball is equally impressive.

"It's amazing to me to see how they can pinpoint where they want it," Hamlin said. "He's thinking about where the wind direction is on his drive. I'm just looking to get it in the vicinity of about a 20-yard range. it"s amazing how good those guys are and how they focus."

While Hamlin makes his living driving cars at speeds in excess of 200 mph, he can appreciate the slower pace of a sport like golf.

"I like to say it's a relaxing game until I get angry and start throwing my clubs," the 30-year-old said. "The funniest thing I saw all day was I had an incident where I chipped past the green and there was this little girl. I took my iron and I chunked it into the ground and she said, 'Oh, Daddy. He's given up.' And I said, 'Yeah, you're right, I am giving up.'

"So that was the funniest thing I saw all day."

Hamlin now makes his home in Charlotte where he is an avid Bobcats fan but Monday was the first time he had ever played the Quail Hollow Club. The lefthander never played in front of so many people, either.

"It's bad enough when you're making wagers with your friends, the pressure, but to have people standing around waiting for you to hit you tee shots, it's tough," Hamlin said with a smile.

"... To be the first time here and as fast as the greens are, I'll take what we had today. Playing in stuff like this is a lot of fun."

Hamlin finished off his round by borrowing a right-handed driver and hitting it upside down -- a shot he learned from Bubba Watson when they played together in Phoenix last fall.

"Every time I hit that drive it's usually straight and obviously, it went further than everyone else's (today) too," Hamlin said. "So there's just something about that shot -- maybe you just concentrate on it more -- but when people see me put the club upside down and hit it, it's a little different."

Interestingly, Ogilvie, one of the PGA TOUR's most accomplished financiers, is part of a private equity fund that owns the Richard Petty Driving Experiences. So he's well-acquainted with what NASCAR drivers like Hamlin can do.

"I know a little bit about it, enough to be dangerous," Ogilvie said. "When you put a guy like me in the car and a guy like him in a car, you don't realize -- it's not even the same sport. What I do driving and what he does driving, it's amazing. ...

"They drive it an an optimal level. It's probably like what Bill Gates can do with a computer and what I can do with a computer. we both use them but one's going to get a whole lot more out of it than the other. And I think that's kind of the way he is with a car."

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Even here in the desert, TPC Scottsdale is a long, lush oasis of green.

Saturday during the Waste Management Phoenix Open, though, the color could get a little overwhelming as the tournament holds a "Green Out" to promote awareness of the eco-sensitive efforts of the event and its title sponsor.

And for every fan who wears green on Saturday, the tournament host Thunderbirds will donate money to Arizona Clean & Beautiful.

Charley Hoffman and Joe Ogilvie, who represent Waste Management on the PGA TOUR, are among those in contention. Hoffman is 7 under through 33 holes while Ogilvy is 5 under and has yet to start his second round.

So both should get plenty of notice on Saturday -- and Hoffman, for one, plans to do his best to live up to the "Green Out" standards.

"I will guarantee you I have green pants, green shoes, green hat, green gloves," Hoffman said earlier in the week. "I haven't decided if the white shirt will look better than the green shirt yet. The shirt is probably the only thing up for grabs."

For more information on the tournament's efforts to be environmentally conscious, click here.