Pga Tour

Who says February is too soon for golf? Psssshhhhh.... The Tour is finally stuck stateside for the future and everyone is shaking off the rust from the Winter. Tiger Woods is making his first US debut this week at the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach where he won the US Open and surprise, surprise, he is playing well on the beach. Let's breakdown the 2012 PGA Tour season and predictions: Tiger will win this season. He played well in Dubai earlier and looks comfortable in his swing.

Tiger Woods finally brought the buzz back to the very thing that made him famous - winning. Two weeks after another injury scare, and two days before his former coach's book goes on sale, Woods looked dominant as ever Sunday in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It was his first PGA Tour victory since a sex scandal at the end of 2009 led to one of the greatest downfalls in sports. And with the Masters only two weeks away, Woods looks more capable of ever than resuming his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus in the majors.

The top 25 players from the Web.com Tour are assured of getting PGA Tour cards under a new system that does away with Q-school. Tour officials stuck to the simplest plan in announcing Tuesday the model for getting to the big leagues. Starting in September 2013, the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour and the top 75 PGA Tour players who do not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs will compete in three $1 million tournaments known as "The Finals. " All players start from scratch and the top 50 will earn their cards.

Australia's Mathew Goggin won the Wichita Open on Sunday for his second Nationwide Tour title of the year and fourth overall, birdieing the final hole for a 2-under 69 and a one-stroke victory over Kyle Thompson. Goggin, also the winner of the season-opening Panama Championship, finished at 18-under 266 on the Crestview Country Club's North Course. He earned $108,000 to push his season total to $303,898, guaranteeing a top 25 finish for the season and a 2012 PGA Tour card. He also moved within a win of an in-season PGA Tour promotion.

Luke List won the South Georgia Classic on Sunday for his first Nationwide Tour title, closing with a 4-under 68 for a two-stroke victory over Brian Stuard. The former Vanderbilt player finished at 16-under 272 at Kinderlou Forest, and earned $112,500. Stuard finished with a 66. Three-time PGA Tour winner Woody Austin, tied for the third-hole lead with List, had a 73 to drop the third, five strokes back. List averaged a field-best 329 yards off the tee on the 7,781-yard course, the longest on the tour.

You'll forgive me if I haven't been the most talkative about golf lately - the weather isn't cooperating. I've played in the cold but I have to be mentally ready for it, and when I'm still pulling a sweater on in mid-April, I'm not mentally ready for it. Even on a day that was supposed to be 55 degrees and sunny, it never turned out that way. It's so hard to work on your game and get into the sport for the spring when it doesn't really feel...

Without hesitation - Rory McIlory is the best golfer on this planet. Hands down. McIlory topped a stacked leaderboard on Sunday at the BMW Championship at 20-under-par at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana. It's his fourth win on the PGA Tour this season and his third in his last four starts. Pretty dominant. The 23-year-old is having his praises sung by everyone in the world right (I did it last week) and will continue to do so until he stops playing golf. This dominance is reminiscant of when Tiger grabbed the golf world by the tail and never let go. It's pretty clear what he is capable of doing in the game.

Talk about a turn of events for Derek Ernst. Coming to Charlotte, NC for the Wells Fargo Championship, he had to make a quick swap with the rental car to avoid 1 $1000 fee, made it in as the fourth alternate for the field and then wins the whole thing.  Ernst was a 22-year-old rookie who made it through traditional Q-School, ranked somewhere in the 1200's in the World Rankings and had only played in nine PGA Tour events. NOW he has qualified for The PLAYERS Championship this week, two World Golf Championships, the PGA Championship and the Masters next April.

Rookie Ted Potter Jr. made a 4-foot birdie putt on the third hole of a playoff with Troy Kelly on Sunday to win the Greenbrier Classic for his first PGA Tour victory. Ranked 218th in the world, Potter overcame a four-stroke deficit with four holes to play, finishing with his second straight 6-under 64 to match Kelly at 16 under. Kelly closed with a 66. Potter became the sixth first-time winner on the tour this season. He earned $1,098,000 and jumped from 173rd to 51st in the FedEx Cup standings.

Tiger Woods won for the third time on the PGA Tour this season. That's more than any other player on the PGA Tour, European Tour, Asian Tour or Australasian Tour. No one has won three times in 2012. That's impressive. And yet, he still isn't the number one player in the world. But with his match-play like win over Bo Van Pelt Sunday for the AT&T National crown, he looked every bit of the dominant player we once remember. He birdied the ninth to take the outright lead, he did the same at the 15th and then on 17 too. That was great golf in a competition setting.

Talk about a turn of events for Derek Ernst. Coming to Charlotte, NC for the Wells Fargo Championship, he had to make a quick swap with the rental car to avoid 1 $1000 fee, made it in as the fourth alternate for the field and then wins the whole thing.  Ernst was a 22-year-old rookie who made it through traditional Q-School, ranked somewhere in the 1200's in the World Rankings and had only played in nine PGA Tour events. NOW he has qualified for The PLAYERS Championship this week, two World Golf Championships, the PGA Championship and the Masters next April.

You'll forgive me if I haven't been the most talkative about golf lately - the weather isn't cooperating. I've played in the cold but I have to be mentally ready for it, and when I'm still pulling a sweater on in mid-April, I'm not mentally ready for it. Even on a day that was supposed to be 55 degrees and sunny, it never turned out that way. It's so hard to work on your game and get into the sport for the spring when it doesn't really feel...

Roy Turner puts on one of the best parties of the year, every summer. It just so happens to go down on a golf course, during a very competitive golf tournament. He lives and breathes the Wichita Open and his efforts have made the best party on a golf course known around the region and the web.com Tour. Tuesday marked a new chapter in the history of the Wichita Open, now known as the Air Capital Classic. The name change was part of a complete change for the tournament. Preferred Health Systems is no longer the title sponsor but is still a sponsor.

Without hesitation - Rory McIlory is the best golfer on this planet. Hands down. McIlory topped a stacked leaderboard on Sunday at the BMW Championship at 20-under-par at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana. It's his fourth win on the PGA Tour this season and his third in his last four starts. Pretty dominant. The 23-year-old is having his praises sung by everyone in the world right (I did it last week) and will continue to do so until he stops playing golf. This dominance is reminiscant of when Tiger grabbed the golf world by the tail and never let go. It's pretty clear what he is capable of doing in the game.

The top 25 players from the Web.com Tour are assured of getting PGA Tour cards under a new system that does away with Q-school. Tour officials stuck to the simplest plan in announcing Tuesday the model for getting to the big leagues. Starting in September 2013, the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour and the top 75 PGA Tour players who do not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs will compete in three $1 million tournaments known as "The Finals. " All players start from scratch and the top 50 will earn their cards.

Rookie Ted Potter Jr. made a 4-foot birdie putt on the third hole of a playoff with Troy Kelly on Sunday to win the Greenbrier Classic for his first PGA Tour victory. Ranked 218th in the world, Potter overcame a four-stroke deficit with four holes to play, finishing with his second straight 6-under 64 to match Kelly at 16 under. Kelly closed with a 66. Potter became the sixth first-time winner on the tour this season. He earned $1,098,000 and jumped from 173rd to 51st in the FedEx Cup standings.

Who had Troy Kelly and Ted Potter, Jr. in the playoff field at the Greenbriar Classic, raise your hand? Anyone? Didn't think so. In a field with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, US Open champ Webb Simpson and an aging yet still very good Vijay Singh, who would have guessed these two Tour rookies would battle it out for the top prize. But Potter fired a final round 64 and Kelly missed a birdie putt on the 18th to force the playoff, where Potter came out on top on the third hole of sudden death.

Tiger Woods won for the third time on the PGA Tour this season. That's more than any other player on the PGA Tour, European Tour, Asian Tour or Australasian Tour. No one has won three times in 2012. That's impressive. And yet, he still isn't the number one player in the world. But with his match-play like win over Bo Van Pelt Sunday for the AT&T National crown, he looked every bit of the dominant player we once remember. He birdied the ninth to take the outright lead, he did the same at the 15th and then on 17 too. That was great golf in a competition setting.

Couldn't Mother Nature have picked the hottest day of the Wichita Open for Thursday or one of the practice rounds? Is that too much to ask? Sunday's final round was scorchingly (sp?) hot and looking at the sweatlines on some of the pro's hats - they were feeling it. There was a just a little breeze out there which kept them as cool as possible when it's over 100 degrees but alas. It was hot. Jim Herman looked like he was going to run away with this thing after the first three holes but he crumbled on the back nine giving way for Casey Wittenberg to pounce and he did. Wittenberg went bogey free on the back nine and won the 2012 Wichita Open at 18-under par. Wittenberg was the least surprising winner of the Open I can remember in the last five years.