It would be tough to argue against March Madness being the best time of the year for drama in sports. It’s win or go home, no tomorrow and all those other sports clichés.

While we only get a handful of match play events a year, there’s no doubting that the format is one of the best we have in professional/high-level amateur golf. Some will clamor for more of the match-play because of the differing strategies that are involved in playing one-on-one, but that won’t work because of reasons we saw two weeks ago at Pebble Beach.

The PGA Tour is a business. Businesses strive to make money and while there are a handful of people in this 64-man field that will bring not only hardcore golf fans, but also fringe sports fans to watch the matches, no one is skipping out on work to watch Robert Karlsson and Fredrik Jacobson.

If we get Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson (who isn’t playing this week) and maybe five or size others, then yes, more match play might be a viable option, but as it stands, it’s not economical to have more match play tournaments than we have already. Plus, the lack of match play events is exactly what makes the Accenture Match Play, US Amateur and Ryder and Presidents Cups special.

That being said, above you’ll see the picks for this week. I wanted to get them up as soon as I could, so when it ends up being the perfect bracket, you can check the post date.

A few highlights.

• Yes, that’s Tiger winning. Why? Because it’s going to happen sometime, he’s a match play god and it’s one round at a time. He doesn’t need to string together six rounds of 68. He needs to be better than one person each day. He can do that and it would make Sunday a lot more fun for Johnny Miller
• Got Freddy Jac beating Lee Westwood in the second round. Why? Because I’m kind of thrown off by Freddy to be honest. Kind of looks like a bad guy from a movie (that I can’t put my finger on), but his painters hat and jerky move at the ball seem to work for him. Plus, Westwood’s soft.
• Have G-Mac going to the semis. An off year in 2011 after a dream 2010, seems like he’s ready to get back on track and what better way to do that than one match at a time.
• Woods and A. Scott in the finals. Just cause.

Coverage starts today at noon on Golf Channel, so check out the best Wednesday of the year.

After Haas posted 7-under with both Bradley and Mickelson still on the 18^th tee, one shot back, the 29-year-old defending FedEx Cup champion told CBS that he expected at least one of them to birdie the 72^nd hole.

Of course, that’s what he has to say.

The 18^th at Riveria is one of the toughest holes on the course, if not the PGA Tour. On Sunday, the hole only gave up six birdies to 73 competitors, so Haas had that to fall back on.

Unfortunately, two of those birdies came in the final group to Mickelson and Bradley in dramatic fashion, one on top of the other to force a three-person playoff.

“I kept fighting, and I was giving away shots and was trying to let it go and move on and see if I could capture one, and I finally got one to go on 18,” Mickelson said. “It felt great.”

After Mickelson electrified the 18^th-hole crowd, Bradley stepped up to his putt seemingly before the gallery was able to calm down and dropped one of his own.

“Even though I didn’t win the tournament, to make that putt on the last hole, one of the toughest holes on the PGA Tour, is really awesome,” Bradley said.

The three players trekked back up the 18^th hole for another go at the famed finishing hole, recorded three relatively routine pars and headed to the 312-yard par-4 10^th hole.

An interesting little golf hole, Mickelson and Bradley both hit three woods off the tee into precarious positions that made hitting the small, crowned green a difficult task.

Haas, after seeing his competitors come up a bit short of the green, pulled driver. He didn’t hit the best of drives, giving him just as good of a chance to getting his second shot close to the hole as the other two.

However, Haas played the hole differently; not overly aggressive, but smart enough that he knew he would be taking bogey out of play. Instead of going straight at the pin and bringing both a front and back bunker into play, Haas decided to layup in a sense, hitting his approach to the fat part of the green, 45 feet away.

“I was thinking 4 could continue,” Haas said. “If Phil holes out of the bunker, or Keegan makes it from off the green, they earned it. They deserve it. Four for me was the goal in the sense that I didn’t want to make 5.

“Honestly, that was not as an easy a shot as you might think.”

Mickelson, in a greenside bunker, had about one square yard to land his ball in to get it close to the hole, according to David Feherty.

And when a player with arguably one of the best short games in the history of the sport lands the ball pin-high and sees his golf ball go into the bunker on the other side of the green, you know it’s a tough shot.

Bradley was just short of the same bunker Mickelson was in, giving him a chance to get at least a little spin on the ball. Even after hitting an exceptional shot, the PGA Champion couldn’t hold the green, his ball trickling into the back fringe.

With Mickelson in yet another bunker and Bradley some 15 feet away off the back fringe, Haas was away.

“If I hit 30 putts, I maybe make five of them,” Haas said. “But it just so happens it did right there. I hit it just like I wanted. I hit the line. There was a ball mark about 10 feet in front of me. I was trying to go just around that, and I did that.

“I’m not giving it all to luck,” he said. “I felt like I hit a nice putt. But from that length, anything can happen.”

Now with their backs against the wall, Mickelson and Bradley were forced to make their next shot/putt to continue the playoff.

In typical Mickelson style, Phil pulled the pin while he stood four feet below the surface of the green, in an obvious attempt to hole the shot. But Lefty caught the ball a little heavy and the ball didn’t come within six feet of the hole.

Haas had dodged the first bullet.

Bradley had to be the one he was most worried about. The 25-year-old major champion had proven over the last six months that he was very capable of holing big putts.

Bradley went through his fidgeting, back-and-forth, and frankly, uncomfortable-looking pre-shot routine, but finally got over the ball with his belly putter and made a good stroke.

The putt looked good for 14 of the 15 feet and then at the last second, the ball cut across the hole, missing on the low side as Bradley fell to his knees in defeat.

“To beat a guy like Keegan and also Phil – guys of their caliber – in a playoff, is amazing, something I’ll never forget,” Haas said.

The win was Haas’ fourth on the Tour and second straight in a playoff. The $1.88 million winner’s check pales in comparison to the $10 million he took home five months prior at the Tour Championship, but to play at Riviera was important enough to Haas to miss a college friend’s wedding.

Haas moved up to No. 12 in the world, the fifth highest ranking American behind Steve Stricker (5), Webb Simpson (6), Phil Mickelson (9) and Dustin Johnson (10).

Haas is matched up in the first round of this week’s World Golf Championship Accenture Match Play Championship with young-gun Ryo Ishikawa.

There is some saying that goes “you have to learn how to lose before you can learn how to win.” As cliché as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened to Kyle Stanley over the past two weeks.

By now, everyone knows about Stanley’s triple-bogey eight on the 72^nd hole at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines that erased Stanley’s three-shot lead and put him in a playoff with Brandt Snedeker that he would eventually lose.

That is called learning how to lose.

Fast forward a week and Stanley found himself back in contention at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, but by the time the CBS coverage came on, Spencer Levin was sitting on a six- or seven-shot lead and the day looked to be over before it started.

Maybe you would have thought that last week as well as Stanley opened up the final round with a five-stroke lead over his nearest competitors. Maybe you thought that there was no way two professionals would blow those kinds of leads on back-to-back weekends.

Of course, you would be wrong.

Levin, who has been made the poster child for antisocial media, struggled with his game and in turn saw his bad temper creep up as well.

Getting to 18-under par through his first three holes, Levin looked to have the tournament in his back pocket. However, the Sacramento-native went on to play the next nine holes in four-over par, allowing just about anyone who was making a move back into the tournament.

Among those contenders were Ben Crane, Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner, and yes, Kyle Stanley.

By the time Levin made his fourth bogey in nine holes, Stanley had a share of the lead on the 13^th hole.

Levin gave a little resistance on the 14^th as he snuck a birdie putt in the side door to match Stanley’s birdie. Unfortunately for Levin, a wayward drive on the par-5 15^th hole forced a punch out and long third shot that found the water short of the green. Levin would card a double-bogey seven and kiss his chances at winning goodbye.

Stanley held steady, parring out the final four holes as the others in contention faltered down the stretch.

Stanley’s caddie, Brett Waldman, said after the round that the nerves he had seen his player display the week before were overcome by a sense of calm that helped Stanley seal the deal.

“He played impressive golf. Last week he was a little bit nervous.  This week there was more of a calm,” Walman said. “Like he said earlier in the week it was therapeutic for him to be out there.  I just kept really building his confidence up.  As of Tuesday, we didn’t really talk about last week at all, it was just move forward.”

Stanley did what no one expected him to do – pick himself up off the mat and go out and win the next tournament.

“I’m not sure what I’m thinking right now,” Stanley said after the round in the flash interview area. “I just needed to focus on playing golf. I needed to put last week behind me.

“I just want to thank my mom and dad. They’ve done a lot for me. I’m speechless.”

After he was able to get his trophy and compose himself, Stanley tried to put into perspective what the week had meant to him in his press conference.

“I’m never going to forget (what happened last week at Torrey Pines),” said Stanley. “But I think it makes this one a lot sweeter, just being able to bounce back. I’m kind of at a loss for words right now.  I’m very grateful for the support I’ve gotten.  It’s unbelievable.  Unbelievable turnaround.”

Tiger's probably not reading Haney's book. (SI/Peter Read Miller)

Welcome to the newest addition to Playing From the Wrong Fairway, Just for Chips and Giggles. Basically, this feature is going to consist of a few links and thoughts on some of the stories in the world of golf that slipped through the cracks. Let’s see what we’ve missed…

Tiger is playing at Pebble

-Normally this story would have warranted its own post, simply because it’s about Tiger, but with all the changing storylines that would go along with it, the timeliness of a post never felt right.

The simple fact being that Woods agreed to start his PGA Tour season at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is nice enough, but then rumors started to circulate about who Woods’ pro-am partner would be. Tony Romo? Tim Tebow? Tom Brady?

Originally, it was reported that Woods would tee it up with Romo, a solid pairing for both because of Romo’s reputation as a good player. Then, Tebow fever took over with the Broncos winning their first-round playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers and people started throwing out the notion of a Tebow-Woods pairing. Those rumors were eventually squashed and the Romo-Woods pairing was confirmed.

Hank Haney is writing about his time with Tiger

-In other Tiger news, last week it was announced that former Woods swimg coach/reality television star/Five Guys promoter Hank Haney was authoring a book about his six years working with Tiger.

As we know, Tiger hates it when anyone tries to use his name to make money or gain notoriety. This is no exception. Woods called the book “unprofessional” and said he was disappointed in Haney trying to make a money grab out of their time spent together.

As for credibility’s sake, Jaime Diaz is co-writing the book.

Diaz, who is to receive the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, has been the most prominent voice in Woods’ career from a writing perspective. Diaz first started chronicling Woods’ career when Eldrick was a teenager. Diaz also spoke at Earl Woods’ memorial service, so it’ll be interesting how his relationship with the former world No. 1 evolves.

The book, titled “The Big Miss” is slated to come out just before the Masters.

Bubba Watson is putting a pink-headed driver into play

US Presswire

-We all know about Bubba’s pink shaft in his driver. Now, the long-hitter is putting a newly-designed Ping driver in his bag that sports a full pink head.The whole deal is part of a charity iniative started by Watson, himself, and his main sponsor, Ping. During “Bubba & Friends Drive to a Million,” Ping will donate $300 for the first 300 drives Watson hits over 300 yards during the 2012 season.

Lexi Thompson and family reveal a big secret

-Randell Mell of GolfChannel.com wrote an awesome piece about the plight that phenom Lexi Thompson and her family have been dealing with for the last 29 years when Lexi’s mom lost her husband to a skiing accident.

Do yourself a fever and read that story.

Rapid Fire

• Nothing quite says “vodka” like Matt Kuchar – the new spokesman for Grey Goose.
• Last year we saw Sergio taking some time off and trying his hand (feet?) at soccer, now he’s playing in poker tournaments. With a faux-hawk.
• Spoiler alert: professional golfers like playing nice courses like Augusta National and others that you’ll never get a chance to play.
• TaylorMade’s new Rocketballz 3-wood guarantees that it will add 15 yards to your previous three medal’s distance. When a blogger called them out on it, he got a chance to go test the club. TaylorMade was right and now he’s sporting the haircut you see to the left.
• Jack Nicklaus turned 72 earlier this week. See you at the Memorial, buddy.
• Rickie Fowler is playing this weekend at the Farmers Insurance Open with new clubs. The young gun signed with Cobra Golf.

He’s ranked No. 56 in the world. He’s made over $15 million on the course since 1999 when he turned pro. He’s won four times on the PGA Tour, seven times overall in the professional ranks, but if you’re to believe his latest viral video, he made the wrong choice.

In the latest edition of the Ben-Crane-in-a-red-jump-suit-and-helmet video series, Crane let’s us into a long-kept secret that he was a master gymnast in his earlier years.

Maybe some people are getting tired of his stupid videos, but I’m not one of them. He’s still funny and he went all-out in this one. The best part is the uneven bars when he just flings himself into the air with no regard for his body.

It looks like he had to get hurt on the first one, but he does it again. Gotta love it.

Plus, for every 100,000 views, Farmers will donate $1,000 to charity, so you can feel good about watching.

Here’s the video.

Getty Images

We’ve had the Hawaii Swing and a nice little pro-am in California so far in 2012, but all these tournaments have lacked the star power that drives people to their television sets to watch golf in the middle of winter.

All that changes this weekend as there are two tournaments taking place on opposites sides of the globe that are sure to catch the attention of the hibernating golf fan, the HSBC Champions in Abu Dhabi and the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. Both tournaments are boasting pretty strong fields with players that are capable of stealing away some viewers from the misery of watching the NFL Pro Bowl.

The question that arises from the split fields of the two tournaments stems from a purely financial point of view and involves Tiger Woods.

Imagine that.

During his press conference earlier in the week, Woods was asked a number of questions about his health, his swing and the state of his game, but an interesting line of questioning came up when the former world No. 1 was asked if appearance fees have an impact on the scheduling of high-profile players.

Woods was pretty forthcoming when asked if it affects how he schedules tournaments, saying, “You know, I’d have to say yes, it certainly does. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of the guys who play in Europe. I think the only tour that doesn’t pay [appearance fees] is the U.S. Tour.

“But, you know, a lot of the guys play all around the world and they do get appearance fees. Only place we don’t get it is the U.S.”

As I’ve said many times before, the upper echelon of professional golfers are independent contractors, setting their own schedule, rarely taking into consideration what their respective tours would like from them.

This week is the perfect example, especially in Woods’ case.

Growing up in southern California and playing on Torrey Pines all of his life, including some of his most iconic victories, you would think that Eldrick would like to take every opportunity to tee it up at Torrey.

However, as Tiger said in his presser, the PGA Tour will not pay their members or members of any other tour to simply show up, something PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem is adamant about.

“From the standpoint of professional athletic competition, it raises the specter in the fans’ mind that the player is only there because he was paid to be there and not there to really compete,” he said. “If the player doesn’t play well, in light of that perception, then there is a secondary perception that he didn’t even come to compete, he just showed up to get his appearance money. That is not a good thing for your image.

“This is something that’s been part of the PGA Tour since its inception in 1968. We think our image is the most important thing we have, and we’re not going to take the risk.”

First of all, the image of the PGA Tour is certainly not the most important thing they have, it’s the players, but the commish does make a good point.

People are cynical and if someone like a Tiger Woods shows up at an off-brand tournament and collects and appearance fee only to shit the bed, excuse the expression, people are going to go into full cynicism mode.

It will become a common thread around the golf world that Woods only showed up because he was paid to be there, not to try and win a tournament, regardless if that were true or not.

The European Tour combats that with paying enough high-profile players to make it worth their while to not only show up for the money, but to compete because of the world ranking points on the line.

This is all just a long way of saying that both systems work when implemented properly. As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

As it stands now, if players are going to get paid good money to show up and play against good fields, they will continue to pass up the Torrey Pines’ of the world to play in Abu Dhabi for a nice pay day before the tournament even starts.

AP

Mark Wilson did it again on Sunday with his win at the Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.

“It” meaning baffling casual golf fans into wondering whom exactly Mark Wilson is.

With three tournaments under our belts in the 2012 golf season, most of your run-of-the-mill golf fans are just wiping the eye boogers off of their collective golfing goggles.

However, if you have been paying attention over the past calendar year, January through March is when Mark Wilson makes his cash.

The win at the Humana was his fifth since the start of the 2011 season, but this one was a little different from the others.

Wilson had to fight off some blustery conditions in La Quinta, Calif. which caused the suspension of play on Saturday, forcing a marathon finish to beat the setting sun on Sunday.

The Humana Challenge, which is taking over for the Bob Hope Classic, spans a traditional four-day tournament, but is played on three different courses (PGA West – Nicklaus Course, PGA West – Palmer Private Course and La Quinta Country Club) with the Palmer Private set as the final-round backdrop.

The Palmer Private was good to Wilson on Friday when the Wisconsin-native shot a 10-under par 62 and he hoped for a repeat performance on Sunday, but it didn’t start out as he had hoped.

“It feels good, obviously, to be here with the trophy,” Wilson said. “The day went not as planned.  I guess it really never does.  But last time I came out here (to Palmer Private), I shot 62, so of course I had those images in mind. I made a bad swing on the third hole, and then felt like I hit a lot of good shots.”

Those good shots weren’t immediately rewarded as Wilson saw his three-stroke lead evaporate before his eyes.

Robert Garrigus, playing alongside Wilson and Zach Johnson, put the most pressure on the eventual champ tying him through nine holes.

Wilson was able to get things going in the right direction on the 11^th hole as he stuck his approach shot and tapped in the birdie putt. He followed that with another birdie on 12 holing out from the bunker, but Garrigus was sticking right with him, evening it up with a second birdie on the incoming nine on the 14^th.

“Birdieing 11, I played that hole really smart.  Then holing the bunker shot on 12 really gave me the momentum to go in the right direction, “Wilson said afterwards.

Both parred the 15^th hole and swapped biridies on the 16^th to enter the final two holes tied at 23-under. Garrigus dropped at shot at 17 to get back to 22-under, but his length allowed him to reach the par-5 18^th in two, giving him an eagle putt for the outright lead as Wilson lined up a 10-foot birdie try.

“I felt like Robert and I really had a good time, and Zach for that matter.  But Robert and I were kind of going back and forth.  We enjoyed that.  Both making the putts on 16, and then, yeah, it just came down to 18,” Wilson said.

Garrigus didn’t have the same steady week that Wilson did. As he and his caddie sat in the fairway six-over through eight holes on Thursday, Garrigus figured he might as well get aggressive and make some birdies if he wanted to even make a check, much less have a chance to win the tournament.

“‘I’m like, Can you believe we actually have a shot to win this thing if I make this eagle putt?” Garrigus recounted of his conversation with his caddie, Brandt Henley. “It was exciting and that’s what we live for. And I got a lot of guts, and I don’t like to lay down very easily. We had so much fun this week.”

Garrigus made a run at the eagle putt that came over a ridge in the green and burned the left edge of the hole. The only problem was Garrigus was so set on making the putt, that he rolled it a good eight feet past the hole.

Wilson stood over his 10-footer for birdie and the win with one thing in mind: “I didn’t want to give him a chance to make that putt to tie me.”

With darkness setting in, Wilson got over his putt and tried to read the green, but got some help from his caddie.

“When I got over that putt and read it, it just looked like it should be faster over that hill,” Wilson explained. “The darkness had a little something to do with it.  Then Chris (Jones), my caddie, read that one perfectly, said it was going to break about an inch to the right and I started outside the hole, which I wasn’t totally trying to do, but it took that inch break at the very end.”

Although Garrigus would go on to miss his putt for birdie, which ended up costing him $186,467 as he fell into a three-way tie for second place with John Mallinger and Johnson Wagner, instead finishing as solo runner-up.

As it turns out, Wilson won his first tournament of 2012, cashing him a winners check of $1.008 million and moved him up to world No. 40.

Wilson took home the inaugural Bob Hope Memorial Trophy for his effort and will not be in the field for this week’s Farmers Insurance Open.

Nice putter. (Getty Images)

While the wins by Steve Stricker and Johnson Wagner were a great way to start the season, all anyone was talking about following the Hawaii Swing was the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman’s uncomfortable interview with Matt Every.

Every held the 36-hole lead at the Sony Opwn and as is the custom, if the Golf Channel can swing it, they’ll get an interview with the leader within their coverage window.

Now, just for the sake of getting the facts out there, Every is probably most well-known for his 90-day suspension from the PGA Tour following his 2010 arrest for possession of marijuana. The suspension cost Every most of his season and as a result, he was unable to retain his Tour card for 2011.

With his card back in his possession after a season on the Nationwide Tour and his name atop the leaderboard, enter Kelly Tilghman for the on-camera interview, which can only be seen at this link on Deadspin because the PGA Tour took down every other link out there.

After answering a few questions about his round and how he’s spending his time in Hawaii, we get a pretty good sense that Every is a pretty easy-going, laid-back guy.

Then Tilghman made reference to “Lost,” a show Every lists in his Tour bio as a favorite, and makes a mediocre segue into him being lost back in 2010 with his arrest and suspension.

Now, a lot of people are getting on Tilghman for pestering Every with questions about things that happened two years ago, but I have no problem with it, honestly.

What do most golf fans know about Matt Every?

I would wager that the most common answer to that question would be his arrest for marijuana possession. So, that’s where Tilghman went.

The most surprising thing was the candidness of Every’s answers. Here’s the exchange.

Tilghman: “But then, the word ‘lost’ might also be a fitting word to describe the state of your mind two years ago when you were arrested on drugs charges and suspended from the PGA Tour, Take us back and tell us what it was like?”

Every: “It was all right. I just got three months off. It’s just golf. I don’t think I was doing anything wrong. But, you know, it happened. I’m the same person, I have the same friends. I don’t think it’s that big a deal. There’s a lot worse stuff that goes on out here than what I got in trouble for.”

Tilghman: “What did you learn from the experience that you’re able to apply to your life today.”

Every: “I feel like I’m the same, I really do. I’m maybe a little more responsible, but I’m not a huge party animal. I’m married, I got a kid on the way. I just like to live. Whatever happened happened.”

First things first, I love Matt Every.

He’s honest and he told Tilghman the truth. It’s refreshing to hear somebody actually make a stand for what they believe in on Tour. It wasn’t the dodging of the question that we see so often with other guys. He doesn’t think marijuana is that big of a deal and there are a lot of people around the country who agree with him.

Obviously, it probably what the PGA Tour wanted to hear, but we’re told so often that these guys are independent contractors and if Every doesn’t want to beat himself up for something that he doesn’t feel is that big of a deal, why should we?

Now, Tim Finchem might have a problem with it and maybe some of his sponsors, but for what it’s worth, he made a fan out of me and I’m sure more than a few others with his honest answers.

Perennial good-guy Steve Stricker took home the hardware at the Tour’s season-opening event, the Tournament of Champions on Maui, which is reserved only for the previous season’s winners meaning that the Wisconsin native punched his ticket to get back to Kapalua this time next year.

The win didn’t come as easily as it may have seemed going into Monday’s final round. Stricker held a five-stroke lead, but saw that margin shrink to one through just six holes.

The 44-year-old veteran saw his usually steady putter betray him early in the round. Couple that with some shoddy course management and Stricker was clawing for his proverbial life.

Stricker gathered himself over the next few holes, saying in his post-round presser that if someone were to tell him that he would have a lead going into the back nine on Monday (the tournament started on Friday), he would have taken it.

“I had just made two dumb plays,” Stricker said of his early-hole mishaps. But then walking down 7, I said, all right, we’re still all right.  “I mean, if I would have told myself early in the week, if I have a two-shot lead going down the 7th hole in the last round, I would take it.  So I kind of tried to reverse it a little bit and make myself feel good.”

Stricker turned that calming down into back-to-back birdies on 8 and 9. He made three more birdies on the way in to shoot a final-round 69, good enough to win by three shots over Scotland’s Martin Laird.

The win signified Stricker’s 12^th of his career. That’s all fine and good, but if you take a closer look, Stricker’s last few years are really impressive.

He’s won nine of those 12 times in his 40s and eight times in his last 50 starts, dating back to the 2009 Crowne Plaza Invitational.

Fast forward a few days and Johnson Wagner was lifting the second of the two tournament trophies given out in Hawaii, this time on the Big Island at the Sony Open.

Wagner captured his third-career win with rounds of 68-66-66-67 to best a group of players two shots back.

Not exactly a household name, Wagner took getting ready for 2012 seriously during the short PGA Tour offseason, working with a trainer and growing a solid mustache.

Perhaps, the biggest talking point of Wagner’s weekend, his new lip hugger was born out of pure laziness and continued through spite.

“I was with my wife’s family in Richmond for Thanksgiving and I just didn’t shave the entire week,” said Johnson, who now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and calls Quail Hollow his home course. “When I got home, I thought, I’ve never had facial hair.  So I thought it was too much growth to just let it go to waste.    I shaved everything but the mustache, and it kind of went from there.  My wife really hated it at the beginning, which made me want to grow it even more.

“And then actually I played in a little tournament the first of December down in Naples and saw Carl Pettersson and George McNeill, and they were both just like, ‘You’ve got to keep it until Hawai’i.  We have to see this thing in a month.’ So I had a lot of motivation to keep it…I kind of made a deal with myself in December that if I was to get into the Masters, then I was going to keep the mustache for at least this year.  I kind of kept telling people and everybody said, ‘Oh, is it a Movember mustache?  Well, it’s December time to shave it.’

“I said, ‘Look, this is not a one-month mustache.  This is potentially a ten-year mustache.’ So I think it’s going to be around for a while.  Now if the summer heat gets to me, I may shave it off.  But I’m going to try to make it as long as I can.”

So, there you have it, the ‘stache stays.

Welcome to the newest addition to Playing From the Wrong Fairway: Just for Chips and Giggles. Basically what this feature is going to be made up of is stories that slip through the cracks. It might become a weekly thing, but it just depends on how things go. Beings that I haven’t had the chance to update in a while, the first edition of this new segment will take the shape of a gigantic link dump. Usually, there will be a little more opinion added to each segment, but with so much time off and everything that needs to be touched on, this is the most simplified way it can happen.

Without further ado, here. we. go.

• It’s a shame that we didn’t get to do something on Luke Donald’s big double-win on the money lists. It really was one of the biggest accomplishments of recent years.
• Speaking of more money than people know what to do with, Lee Westwood shows that he is just a normal bloke making too much money.
• The world lost perhaps it’s best golfer while we were away. A 38-under par round of 34 and 11 holes-in-one. What a shame the Dear Leader never got his chance to play Augusta.
• Chubby Chandler’s International Management Group stable of stars took a hit when Rory McIlroy walked, but the Chubster added former US Am Champion Peter Uhlein and he’s talking about playing on the European Tour.
• Gary Woodland has had an interesting off-season. First, he was dropped by his swing coach (?) and now, he’s with Tiger and Mark Steinberg. 
• Speaking of Rory, he’s gave a couple of interviews towards the end of 2011 about the Masters, the US Open and what went into his decision to leave IMG. 
• Another young up-and-comer, Lexi Thompson snagged her second win.
• Yani Tseng dominated golf in 2011 moreso than anyone since Tiger in 2000 last year, but she still can’t get any love.
• Tiger Woods is one of those guys who left college early and never seemed to pan out. Could you imagine the type of coin he’d make if he actually got a degree? Well, he’s going to join the club of super-rich recent college graduates that I’m a member of. Just rolling in dough. 99% of college athletes go pro in something other than sports, you know.
• Speaking of guys who didn’t get a college degree and are really doing everything they can to scrape by, Justin Timberlake is now the Creative Director for Callaway.
• The PGA Tour is messing with the Q-School format and not in a good way. How am I supposed to get into the big leagues with these changes?
• BubbaClaus shot a 58. Not really that impressive compared to Kim Jung-il.
• The Golf Channel put Nick Faldo and Johnny Miller together in the same booth for the Tournament of Champions. It went as well as you could expect, which is to say, not well.
• 2012: The Year of Robot Golf. Maybe the Mayans were right.
• And finally, the golf highlight of the Wrong Fairway moratorium:

It’s good to be back. More tomorrow.

Thanks for checking in. 2012 should be fun.