With Presidents Cup ambitions at the forefront of his mind the inform John Senden will be the Australian to watch at this week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational in Texas.

Senden, who has three top-10’s in 12
appearances at Colonial Country Club, has publicly stated his desire to earn a
spot on the International team in October but at eighth in the standings knows
his position is not yet guaranteed.

The two time PGA TOUR winner finished T5
behind Adam Scott here last year and if he can reproduce that form on a course
that should suit his ball striking prowess he could go a long way to sealing
automatic selection for Korea.

PGA TOUR Radio analyst Fred Albers has
picked Senden as this week’s winner also citing not only his current form but
the fact the Queenslander now calls Dallas home.

After a slow start to the year Senden has
looked sharp in recent weeks and while the statistics say he is still in minus
figures overall in the Strokes Gained Putting category his form on the greens
in recent weeks has been vastly improved.

Senden is one of seven Australians in this
week’s field led by defending champion Adam Scott as well as Geoff Ogilvy,
Aaron Baddeley, Marc Leishman, Steven Bowditch and Jarod Lyle.

While Scott will garner plenty of attention
at the venue where he won for the first and only time as the world’s top ranked
player he must have some concerns about the overall state of his game.

After a good week with the short putter in
his first event at Doral it has been a struggle on the greens for Scott whose
ball striking also took a nosedive in the second round last week on his way to
missing the cut at the Wells Fargo tournament.

While the hitting issues are unlikely to
last long with an action as technically sound as Scott’s he needs to start
seeing some putts drop, and soon, if he is to be a factor in the remaining
majors of 2015.

Two missed cuts in a season for a man who
went three years without a weekend off is hardly cause for panic but at the
upper echelons of the game where Scott resides confidence is crucial and a good
performance this week would go a long way to ensuring Scott maintains his.

Of the other Australians Geoff Ogilvy’s
game has shown signs of life in recent weeks with decent golf at both The
PLAYERS and last week’s Wells Fargo.

Putting has been the Victorian’s bug bear
this year with almost a full shot lost to the field on the greens each week
but, like Senden, recent results indicate some improvement in that area of the
game.

Ogilvy’s history at Colonial is a mixed bag
with just one top-10 and three missed cuts in 10 starts but he has shot 64 at
the venue three times so knows the course well enough to score on.

Patience will be key on a layout that
demands something of every shot and if his mind is right there is no reason
Ogilvy can’t contend on Sunday.

Of the others Jarrod Lyle gets his second
consecutive start this week and after missing his seventh straight cut last
week will be motivated to turn his form around.

The Victorian has been unable to get much
momentum going courtesy of the limited nature of his starts in 2015 but playing
back-to-back weeks might be just the tonic required to get on a roll.

Lyle has written on his blog several times
this year that his game feels close and not much needs to happen to turn missed
cuts into cheques and while he has played Colonial only once for a missed cut
in 2011 this could be a good week for him.

Of the others Marc Leishman has a decent
record at the Crowne Plaza making that cut all four times he has played though
a best finish of T21 suggest he hasn’t quite figured the course out yet.

Steven Bowditch has played three times at
this event for two missed cuts and a T16 while Aaron Baddeley has been a
sporadic visitor teeing up six times since 2004 for one top 10 and two missed
cuts.