Coming off a sizzling, eight-under-par 63 Sunday in Las Vegas that matched his lowest round on the PGA Tour, Chris Stroud feels he’s ready to hit a serious jackpot in this week’s Fry’s.com Open at Greyhawk in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“My confidence is as high as it’s ever been,” said Stroud. “That round Sunday was a major breakthrough for me because I finally held things together and didn’t lose my momentum. I had that round in me all week, but I kept letting it get away.”

Stroud’s closing 63, which featured a whopping 10 birdies, was the second low score of the day to Jim Furyk’s 62. It was his second 63 of the year, matching his second-round score when he was on his way to tying for 14th in the Bob Hope Classic back in February.

More important, however, was the fact he soared 33 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for 19th place in the Justin Timberlake hosted event, earning $50,904 in the process. That moved him up to No. 125 on the money list. No. 125, of course, is the cutoff point for retaining his PGA Tour card.

Stroud has three remaining events on the fall tour to improve his position, but he has a very good reason for hoping his 2009 season ends Sunday in Scottsdale. Wife Tiffany is due to deliver the couple’s first child, a girl, on Nov. 15. By then, he’d rather not be worried about the money list.

“My goal is to finish in the top five this week and get it taken care of,” he said. “I’m treating it like this is the last tournament of the year. I’m going to play this one with the same mindset I had at Q school last year.”

Stroud also believes he’ll have some baby karma working in his favor.

“It’s been amazing how many guys on tour have had great tournaments this year around the birth of their first child,” he said. “My friend, Scott Piercy, and his wife had a baby boy last Wednesday, he went ahead and played in Las Vegas and he almost won. Now it’s my turn.”

Stroud is coming off a week in which he made a remarkable 23 birdies and an eagle. Thirteen of the birdies, as well as the eagle, came on the weekend. He started Saturday’s round by making three birdies and the eagle in his first seven holes, but saw the round slip away with four bogeys over the final 11 holes.

“I really had it going Saturday, then I three-putted my 9th hole, missed a couple of good birdie putts early on the back nine, got a bad break in a bunker and my momentum got away,” the PN-G ex explained. “But I came back out Sunday with a good attitude, overcame an early bogey and really got hot. There were two holes on my back nine where I made great scrambling pars to keep my momentum from slipping away.

“After the second save, I felt so relaxed and good about myself, and I birdied the last two holes to finish it off in style. That’s how you turn 68s into 64s and 72s into 68s. Par saves are so important. Of course, it really helps when putts start falling. I only had 24 putts on Sunday. I knocked in a couple of long, long birdies.”

Stroud thinks things are starting to fall into place for him because of the work he’s put it on his game over the last two or three months.

“My ball striking has been very good,” he said, “but I wasn’t getting the most out of my rounds. Because I was hitting the ball so well, I felt it was just a matter of time and a matter of putts starting to fall. I was confident going to Vegas because I tend to play well in the desert. That’s part of why I feel so good about this week.”

Although Stroud’s game plan is to finish high enough in Scottsdale to secure his PGA Tour card for 2010, he will play the final two events — the Viking Classic next week in Mississippi and the Children’s Miracle Network Classic at Disney World the week of Nov. 12-15 — if necessary. In that scenario, labor would be induced for Tiffany to have the baby — Halle Grace — on Nov. 9 in Kingwood.