FanHouse Y.E. Yang

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Ryan Moore. Those are just some of the elite names on the list of people that have bypassed PGA Tour Qualifying School because of elite play when they were youngsters.

Rickie Fowler has a chance to join that group with a top-10 finish this week at the Children's Miracle Network Classic, the last official tournament of the year on the PGA Tour and Fowler's lone shot to earn somewhere around $70,000 or more to make it in the top-125 and avoid the final stage of Q-School.

Some interesting components come about here. First, Fowler was playing his best golf the last two tournaments, finishing t-7 at Justin Timberlake's tournament and a playoff loss at the Frys.com Open in Phoenix. That means, if Fowler could somehow put together another high finish, he would have earned his card in three tournaments!

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Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink and Y.E. Yang got together Tuesday and Wednesday in Bermuda to play 36 holes of golf.

They did this because each year the PGA of America invites the season's four major championship winners to some exotic site, puts up a boat-load of money and calls it the Grand Slam of Golf.

In the best of years, the ones when Tiger Woods shows up, the event can be mildly interesting because there always is a chance television will show a brief glimpse of "Privacy," the 155-foot, $28 million yacht he might have anchored in the harbor.

Most of the time, however, you get what this week so whole-heartedly provided: A reminder that golf all too often is its own worst enemy.

A good rule of thumb: If the final results do not count, there's no reason to care.

In what was as close a race as Secretariat vs. field, Tiger Woods was named PGA of America Player of the Year on Wednesday for the 10th time in his career.

The award was basically a lock for Woods, who won six events this season, the FedEx Cup, the Vardon Trophy and the Bryon Nelson Award for sporting the lowest scoring average, a salty 68.05. The main reason Tiger was able to claim this award, and most likely the PGA Tour Player of the Year which will be announced at a later date, is because all the major winners didn't make much noise in the other events.

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For the last big event of the 2009 season, the Presidents Cup gave us more drama than the score might appear. A captain's pick failing to win a point (Gasp!). An 18-year-old rookie stealing the show for the losing team (Wow!). And, as you probably expected, the number one golfer in the world doing exactly what he does, week in and week out. So who left Harding Park a winner, and who will look back at this event wishing it never happened?

SAN FRANCISCO -- If there are three iron-clad certainties in golf, you have to figure close behind the balls having dimples and Tiger Woods having it all, comes the United States having its way in the Presidents Cup.

The Internationals came, they played, they got thumped.

Once more, without a lot of feeling.

Any drama a cold, gloomy-gray Sunday at Harding Park Golf Club hoped to generate, could not possibly have vanished any quicker.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods had just improved their Presidents Cup record together this week to 4-0 and were about to do the obligatory network interview Saturday evening when a leather-lunged voice from bleachers behind 16 green stopped everything.

"Wisconsin and Stanford in the Rose Bowl!!"

Sticker laughed out loud. Even Woods, who can ignore a marching band, turned to look into the stands, shook his head in disbelief and responded with a smile. Some things just are not going to happen, but this week at Harding Park Golf Club the loud guy was on the right track. Stricker, a big cheese in Wisconsin, and Woods, the Stanford dropout, are the granddaddy of all golf pairings.

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He is Tiger Woods, and sometimes, it seems we forget this. He wins six events in 2009 and we complain about his performances at the majors. He is one of the better match play golfers to ever wrap his hands around a cord grip, yet we worry about his team record.

And then he goes and does stuff like he did Saturday morning at Harding Park in San Francisco, and we remember, this guy is so good at golf it's sickening. Playing alongside Steve Stricker for the third time this week at the Presidents Cup, Woods and Stricker found themselves in trouble. Serious trouble. Needing a 22-footer for birdie on 17 just to say in the match, Tiger eyed the putt with the International team of Mike Weir and Tim Clark in tight for birdie.

Woods' putt looked like it might be short the whole way, but one more revolution lead to the biggest Woods fist pump since the 2005 chip-in at Augusta National and a breath of air to Fred Couples' A team. Weir missed the short birdie, and the match went to 18 all square.

There, Tiger did something only Tiger can do.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The greatest shots in Presidents Cup history? No, not a chance. All the same, Justin Leonard played them perfectly.

Let's talk shot making.

He drained them.

"It was knowing I needed to come out and play well today," he said.

Leonard teamed with Phil Mickelson for Friday's Presidents Cup second round and played top shelf. He birdied the first hole to get the American twosome going in the best-ball competition. He kept pounding until finally rolling in a 12-footer at No. 16 to finish off the International team of Retief Goosen and Adam Scott 3 and 2.

It was a performance instrumental in allowing the United State to lead 6½-5½ going into Saturday's third round.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Of all the various formats used during four days of this week's Presidents Cup match-play competition, alternate shot is the indisputable meat grinder.

Two golfers with a single golf ball. One player hits a shot, the other finds it and gets to take the next whack.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

"Alternate shot -- we all know it's difficult," U.S. captain Fred Couples said. "But it's also an emotional thing."

Copy that, as Jack Bauer would say.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The eighth Presidents Cup begins play Thursday afternoon at Harding Park Golf Club, but the action started Wednesday when team captains, American Fred Couples and International Greg Norman, matched twosomes for six first-round foursome matches.

The alternate-shot competition will begin at 12:10 p.m. PDT with the International pairing of Canadian Mike Weir and South African Tim Clark taking on Americans Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson.

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