Minor number shifting

With little activity last week, the only changes are due to minor number shifts that caused Paul McGinley to slide back to Tier V and allowed Fred Couples and Bart Bryant to slip back into Tier V. The Tiger Rule remains in place as without it the top 5 tiers would extend all the way down to Charles Howell III, world number 52.

Weekend highlights:

• It was certainly interesting to see Duval's name back on the leaderboard in Japan this week despite his weak showing Sunday.
• It's great to get a chance to watch the European Tour regulars play golf to get to know some new faces. The expressions on Henrik Stenson's face at times this week were particularly priceless. His name has been on my radar for the past few months, but I didn't really know who he was until this week. In fact, I think I had him mixed up with Niclas Fasth for a while there. I'm not sure how I missed him at the WGC-AmEx, but I'm guessing ABC didn't show him much. (They were too enraptured by the Woods/Daly driving contest.) At the end of 2004, I picked Nick O'Hern as my European Tour player to follow for 2005 and while he did have some interesting highlights for the year he was certainly less than sensational. This time around I'm picking Henrik Stenson to follow in 2006. He hasn't showed up in the top 5 tiers much yet, but if next year goes as well as this year has it won't be too long before he is a regular in the top tiers.