THE 2012 FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN is underway at Torrey Pines (North and South courses) in La Jolla, California. Four players on the North Course, including Bill Haas, currently lead at 5 under. It’s still way early in the first round, though.Purse: $6 millionWinner’s share: $1.044 millionDefending champion: Bubba WatsonInside the fieldTee timesInside the coursesPlayer interviewsTournament...

By Brian KeoghSpecial to ARMCHAIR GOLFBrian Keogh is a golf correspondent for The Irish Sun and a contributor to The Irish Times, Golf Digest Ireland and other golf publications. The following excerpt from Brian’s Irish Golf Desk is used with permission. Tiger Woods is fit and determined.TIGER WOODS IS BACK ON THE PROWL again—fitter, stronger and more determined than ever.At...

The long par-4 12th hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines. (Courtesy of D.Hilgart)THERE ARE HORSES FOR COURSES, as the saying goes, so it makes a lot of sense that long-hitting Bubba Watson won last year’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. Of course, Torrey Pines is two 18-hole tracks, the short North Course and the long South Course. How long? At 7,698 yards, the South...

Branden GraceA MONTH AGO SOUTH AFRICAN BRANDEN GRACE was in European Tour Qualifying School. Less than two weeks ago Grace was ranked 258th in the world. Now the 23-year-old sits atop the European Tour money list and is ranked No. 92 in the Official World Golf Ranking after knocking off boyhood idols Ernie Els and Retief Goosen in a sudden-death playoff at the Volvo Golf Champions...

FRED COUPLES AND FRED FUNK have spent many years together on the golf course. Now, as shown in this humorous spot, the two competitors are honing their pitches for Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating.Couples has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the company while Funk has received an extension. Commercials with the two Champions Tour players will air on Golf Channel...

Ryan MooreTHREE PLAYERS SHARE THE 36-HOLE LEAD at 16 under at the 2012 Humana Challenge in Partnership with the Clinton Foundation. These guys (all of them, not just the leaders) go especially low in Palm Desert. Ben Crane (63), David Toms (65) and Mark Wilson (62) are at 128, three ahead of a four-player group at 13 under.But none of the leaders had the low round of the day. That...

THE 2012 HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATION is underway at PGA West (Palmer and Nicklaus courses) in La Quinta, California. It’s early in the first round with most of the field still out on the courses, but Camilo Villegas is the leader in the clubhouse with a 9-under 63. That might just hold up as the first-round lead.Purse: $5.6 millionWinner’s share...

By PGA of AmericaDiaz on Charlie RoseGOLF DIGEST SENIOR WRITER JAIME DIAZ has been named the recipient of the 2012 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. Diaz will be honored April 4 at the 40th Golf Writers Association of America Annual Spring Dinner and Awards ceremony in Augusta, Georgia.“Jaime Diaz has a gift in providing us with many of the finest, thought-provoking...

Editor’s note: The Rules Geek is an occasional and potentially annoying feature at ARMCHAIR GOLF.IMAGINE ARRIVING 20 SECONDS LATE for a tee time. No big deal, right? Wrong, as Rory Sabbatini found out at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions a couple of weeks ago. Sabo showed up 20 ticks late for his second round tee time and got slapped with a two-stroke penalty.Nothing against...

Wagner, pre-facial hair.JOHNSON WAGNER, WINNER OF THE Sony Open in Hawaii, is a big dude. He stands 6’ 3” and goes 230 (according to his PGA Tour profile, although he might be lighter now). His given name is Montford and he is wearing a moustache that everyone seems to be talking about.“I was with my wife’s family in Richmond for Thanksgiving and I just didn’t shave the...

IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, Webb Simpson, the young gun who won twice on the PGA Tour late in the 2011 season, has been making a lot of birdies. Until Friday’s second round at the 2012 Sony Open in Hawaii, Simpson had posted 13 straight rounds in the 60s. (In Thursday’s opening round he put together a 66 and was among the leaders.)Then on Friday the 13th, the streak ended...

IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, Webb Simpson, the young gun who won twice on the PGA Tour late in the 2011 season, has been making a lot of birdies. Until Friday’s second round at the 2012 Sony Open in Hawaii, Simpson had posted 13 straight rounds in the 60s. (In Thursday’s opening round he put together a 66 and was among the leaders.)Then on Friday the 13th, the streak ended...

IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, Webb Simpson, the young gun who won twice on the PGA Tour late in the 2011 season, has been making a lot of birdies. Until Friday’s second round at the 2012 Sony Open in Hawaii, Simpson had posted 13 straight rounds in the 60s. (In Thursday’s opening round he put together a 66 and was among the leaders.)Then on Friday the 13th, the streak ended...

By Charles ProkopSpecial to ARMCHAIR GOLFCopyright © Charles Prokop. All rights reserved. Used with permission.Courtesy of SiderealTHERE’S A TYPE OF PYSCHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURE called a projective test. The idea is that what someone makes of an ambiguous stimulus says more about the person than it says about the stimulus. In the Rorschach Inkblot Technique, probably the...

THE 2012 SONY OPEN IN HAWAII is underway at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii. Graham DeLaet of Canada is the early leader with a 7-under 63. K.J. Choi, Carl Petterson and Kyle Riefers are in the clubhouse with 65s. The first round is still in progress.Purse: $5.5 millionWinner’s share: $990,000Defending champion: Mark WilsonInside the fieldTee timesInside the coursePlayer...

THE LPGA RELEASED ITS 2012 SCHEDULE and, it seems, all meaningful numbers are up. The 27-event schedule features five new tournaments with 100-plus player fields. Four are in North America (three in the United States, one in Canada). The other new event is at Royal Melbourne (site of the Presidents Cup) in Australia, the season-opening ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open.Total purse...

Steve Stricker is a master at wedge play.THE MAN WITH THE VELVET putting stroke captured the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course in Maui on Monday. That would be 44-year-old Steve Stricker, who cruised to a three-shot win over Martin Laird by closing with a 69 for a 23-under total of 269.It was Stricker’s 12th PGA Tour title and his first island...

DAVID TOMS WENT OUT FIRST and will finish close to last at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, but he’ll be ready to watch his LSU Tigers take on the Alabama Crimson Tide for the college football national championship on Monday night. Playing alone, Toms raced around the Plantation Course at Kapalua in a mere two-and-a-half hours.The LSU alum wore school colors (purple shirt,...

Pinehurst No. 2 is the site of a unique golf challenge.TWO MEN. TEN STROKES. FOUR DAYS. With famed Pinehurst No. 2 as the backdrop.That is the scenario facing Bill Friese and Mike McClanahan in Pinehurst Golf Academy’s “Take 10 Challenge,” a weekly six-part web series that launched last Wednesday with the first episode at www.pinehurst.com/take10.The two mid 40-year-old, high...

THE 2012 HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS is underway at the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui, Hawaii. Jonathan Byrd is the defending champion in the 28-player field.The 11th hole at the Plantation Course.Purse: $5.6 millionWinner’s share: $1.12 millionDefending champion: Jonathan ByrdFieldTee timesCourseTournament overviewTournament news2012 Hyundai Tournament of Champions...

Courtesy of Shannon Hurst Lane MASTERS TOURNAMENT CHAIRMAN BILLY PAYNE announced on Tuesday that 104 players have been invited to the 2012 Masters scheduled for April 2-8. Of those invited, 92 are expected to compete, including six amateurs and 14 first-time participants.Two opportunities still remain to qualify for an invitation to the 2012 Masters: 1) win a PGA Tour event that...

Former president Bill Clinton in 2009.WHEN ASKED ABOUT HIS DREAM FOURSOME by a San Bernardino, California, newspaper, former president Bill Clinton named five individuals, making it a sixsome. They included six-time British Open winner Harry Vardon, two Roosevelts (Teddy and Franklin), Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Jones and Sam Snead.The former president called Vardon a “smart rascal...

Jim HuberJIM HUBER WAS A MEDIA MEMBER I wanted to meet when I knew I would be attending the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional. It was my first U.S. Open inside the media center. It turned out that Jim was seated in the row directly behind me, just a few feet away. We met, talked and shared a lunch table one day. He was as gracious in person as he came across on the TV screen in his...

Editor’s note: As the year comes to a close, I offer one last post from the 2011 season. This one ran on Valentine’s Day. Happy New Year to you and yours.D.A. POINTS AND BILL MURRAY won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Yeah, whatever.The real question on this Valentine’s Day—and as I stared longingly at Pebble on my TV screen on Sunday—is this: When am I going�...

Editor’s note: As the year comes to a close, I offer another favorite post from the 2011 season. This one, from late January, addresses the unorthodox golf action of Bubba Watson.Bubba Watson launches one.CBS’S PETER KOSTIS DOES A GOOD JOB on swing analyses. While other golf talking heads sound like they’re blowing smoke, Kostis, as I’ve written, hypnotizes me. He just sounds...