FedEx Notebook \ More from Atlanta

O’Hair stays busy: Sean O’Hair had played five of six weeks through the BMW Championship, grinding his way to a pair of top 10s in the last two events to climb up to the No. 7 seed going into the Tour Championship. Most players were thankful for the one-week break in the FedEx Cup playoffs. O’Hair apparently was not one of them. “I played six days in a row,” he said. This was far different from playoff golf, however. O’Hair called up his buddies near his home outside Philadelphia and they played every day around town — his home course of Aronomink, Kennett Country Club and Concord Club, where his wife grew up p aying. “It was a good week off,” he said. “Just played with my buddies, and we just had a good time. Did a lot of gambling and lost a lot of money. I lost a lot of money last week, but that’s OK.” O’Hair said he didn’t play particularly well, which explains the losses. Plus, he gave his friends too many shots. “They were winning bets on the first tee,” he said.

One bad hole: Phil Mickelson spent part of last week working with putting specialist and former PGA champion Dave Stockton, and he got off to a reasonable start Thursday in the Tour Championship. His only mistake was a big one. Mickelson took a quadruple-bogey 8 on the 14th hole and wound up with a 73. More disturbing than the snowman on his scorecard was that Mickelson had only 123 yards to the green from the middle of the fairway. He pulled it into the bunker, then blasted it over the green. His four shot went across the green and back into the bunker, and from there it took him two shots to get out. Then came two putts and an 8, and that was that. Mickelson was in good spirits when he finished. He declined a brief interview with reporters, looking at them and saying with a smile, “You guys don’t need me, do you? I’m in last place.” No one minded, and Mickelson headed to the railing and signed autographs.

Associated Press