FanHouse Shaun Micheel

Over the next two weeks, FanHouse will be delivering any and all awards for the 2009 PGA and LPGA Tour season. It will be a collection of anything that needs to be awarded, from Player of the Year, to Best Shot of '09 to Breakthrough Twitterer. It is, simply named, The Green Jacket awards.

Thousands of shots are hit on the PGA Tour each week, so to look at the entire year and dissect the best one might seem difficult. Sure, there was that pure 5-iron someone snuggled up next to the pin at the FBR Open, or the long putt drained for an eagle, but what shot was great and influential?

It finally happened. David took down Goliath. The little man won. Get out your sports cliche book and toss them all on the table. Tiger Woods went into a major championship final round with a two-shot lead, and lost to a man nobody outside of a small group of golf nerds had ever heard of.

Y.E. Yang, the little-known golfer who won the Honda Classic earlier this year, hit the shot of his life on the 18th hole -- after hitting the other shot of his life on the 14th hole -- to win his first major championship over a man that treats major leads like an obese man handles a salami sandwich.

He's the first Asian-born player to ever win a major, and he did it in a style that had even the most random sports fans rooting for a man they didn't even know existed on Thursday. The question people will be asking is, how did he do it?

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Every Monday during the PGA Tour season, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action. Basically, we'll focus on what you missed while you were out grinding on the putting green.

Johnson Delivers Another Playoff Victory -- Before April of 2007, Zach Johnson was a relative nobody in the golf world. He'd won the BellSouth Classic back in 2004, but he hadn't been making noise before he headed to Augusta National last year.

Yet twelve strategic lay-ups and a bunch of well played golf had Johnson wearing his first green jacket. Johnson's 2007 Masters win made us believe that golf isn't just about booming tee shots and big names.

You know when you are deciding to fly somewhere, and you have to buy a ticket? Or when you're going on vacation and you obviously have to register at a hotel to secure your room? Well, the PGA Tour works similarly to that, as golfers have to register their names with tournaments they want to play in so officials know who will be there and how many golfers are showing up.

"Glory's Last Shot" is upon us, and with He Who Should Not Be Named out for the second consecutive major, we in the golf world have to type and make up things as we pick "favorites" when we really have just as good an idea of who will win as you.

If that doesn't entice you, this might -- only one golfer not named Tiger Woods in the top 10 of the Official World Ranking has won a major championship since the Masters in 2006. Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Geoff Ogilvy, Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker and Adam Scott have all gone a very long time without winning a major (if ever) and it seems these top-10 golfers might be due.

Here are my favorites, their best finish in a PGA Championship, and why they made the list.

• Phil Mickelson -- WON -- My least favorite person ever to pick in majors, but he did play good for three rounds (or four if you ask him) last week and had himself in a extremely good position even with a balky putter and his obviously struggle with weight choking. If he can somehow find a way to hit the fairway this week, he'll be near the top come Sunday (and on cue probably find a way to drop the ball in dramatic fashion).

Some don't know this fact, but Jack Nicklaus once said the PGA Championship was his favorite tournament to win. Tiger Woods has coined it "the championship of championships." Vijay Singh said it was a thrill unlike any other.

Yeah, the fact that you're rolling your eyes makes it easy to see you don't believe me.

It's a major championship and it has made names like Shaun Micheel and David Toms household names. Can Sergio Garcia claim his first title? Will Phil Mickelson dominate 71 holes until he quadruples the last? Is it Singh time?

Grab a chicken sandwich and join us at 1 PM Eastern for a live blog, and maybe a joke or two.

As the PGA Tour continues to putter to it's inevitably fizzy 2008 conclusion, the only thing that gives hard-core golf fans (read: fair-weather fans) optimism is that Tiger Woods will be back in eight or nine months. And last weekend, commissioner Tim Finchem got a glimpse of the now gaunt, feeble legend:

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem saw Tiger Woods for the first time since his season-ending surgery, and reported Sunday that the No. 1-ranked golfer was his usual self, except for being about 10 pounds lighter and walking with a slight limp.

"He lost 12 or 13 pounds after surgery, gained a few back," Finchem said. "He looks kind of thin."

Thing is, Woods' current physical limitations still aren't enough to insure Phil Mickelson doesn't throw up on himself on the back nine on Sunday. I think that would require double-arm amputation and wheelchair confinement and then, maybe, Philbert might feel comfortable enough to not play not to lose.

Anyway, while we wait for Tiger to save Phil from himself, we have the PGA Championship to look forward to. It's four days away and I've already got a bad case of Shaun Micheel Fever!

It's never too early to get major championship talk a-stirring, with the practice rounds beginning in less than two weeks at Royal Birkdale.

Two players, Shaun Micheel and some other guy I can't think of, have already withdrawn from the British Open, but the field is nearly complete with the international qualifying wrapping up, and some familiar names will be present on the links.

Davis Love III, Paul Goydos and Rich Beem were three of seven golfers to qualify yesterday at the Dearborn, Michigan site with Matt Kuchar and Alex Cejka headlining the seven qualifiers at TPC Michigan.

Goydos, runner-up to Sergio Garcia in the Players Championship after a gust of wind killed his chances in the playoff, will be making his first appearance in the British and is fairly stoked about the opportunity.

"This was my No. 1 goal for the year," he said. "If nothing else happened this year, I wanted to play in the British Open. A lot of other good things have happened on top of that, but this really has been my No. 1 goal."

Some of the less fortunate souls that missed out were Ryan Moore, Kevin Na, Bubba Watson, Jose Maria Olazabal and Darren Clarke.

Finally to double digits, it's the FanHouse Media Guide.

• Jarrod Lyle -- DNP -- A win already under his belt this year on the Nationwide Tour, Lyle has struggled lately, missing the cut in four of his last five tournaments. At age 17, Lyle was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukiemia, taking nearly two years off from golf to treat the disease.

• Hunter Mahan -- t-13 -- Mahan is kind of a badass. He won the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1999, runner-up at the U.S. Amateur in 2002, blistered college golf at Oklahoma State and has since won the 2007 Travelers Championship. I might be stretching here, but I have a feeling he could win a major one day.

• John Mallinger -- t-67 -- Mallinger is 61st on the FedEx Cup point standings, with three top-10s highlighted by a third place in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

• Steve Marino -- CUT -- Marino, in just his second full year on the PGA Tour, has won over a million dollars and unless Tiger Woods does this to him, he will be back in 2009. Marino shot a 59 in the 2006 Gateway-Grey Goose Tour Championship, winning the tournament by ten shots.

• Ross McGowan -- DNP -- Englishman McGowan has four top-10s on the European Tour and is currently 122 in the World Golf Rankings. Also, went to the American university where the student newspaper is called The Daily Beacon.

• Rocco Mediate -- 4 -- Seriously, is there a person in the world that doesn't get giddy when they see Rocco Mediate? He's like a soft puppy or Starbursts, they're just good for the world. Went from the PGA Tour to a reporter on The Golf Channel back to the links this year, where he had his best finish two weeks ago at the Memorial (t-6).

• John Merrick -- CUT -- The UCLA graduate missed out on retaining his PGA Tour card by four spots last year, so he just decided to go back to Q-School and, well, school it. Now in perfect position to keep his card for '09, Merrick will be looking for his first cut made in a major.

• Shaun Micheel -- t-28 -- OUCH, that hurt like hell, damn lightening striking. Micheel won the 2003 PGA Championship with an approach shot on 18 that nearly holed for an eagle. After a rather impressive 2004 (20 of 27 cuts made) Micheel has struggled, making just 52.4 percent of his cuts in the past four seasons.

• Phil Mickelson -- 2 -- What more is there to say about Lefty? He's finished in second or a tie for second four times, tie for fourth once and two other top-10s. If there is ever a year for Phil to win one of these things it's now.

• Jon Mills -- CUT -- Canadian Mills isn't having an amazing year (133 on FedEx Cup points) but he does have some things to hang his hat on. He helped launch a "Learn to Golf Program for Kids" in his hometown of Belleville to help underprivileged kids learn the game.