ESPN Golf

Los Angeles 11, Tiger Woods 0.

Perhaps there's kryptonite in the Pacific Palisades air. How else to explain Woods' winless record at the Nissan Open, which was extended when he withdrew after two rounds due to illness?

Whatever it is, Fred Couples is hardly allergic. Freddie now owns 12 top-10 finishes in 25 career L.A. starts, buoyed by his fourth-place result on Sunday.

And newly crowned champion Rory Sabbatini felt no ill effects, earning his third career PGA Tour victory.

That's all well and good, but the Weekly 18 begins by looking ahead to this week, with questions about whether we'll see more elite players next weekend at La Costa.

The premier edition of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship was met with boundless optimism, but dominated by serendipitous mediocrity. Nothing against Jeff Maggert or Andrew Magee -- the former beat the latter in a 38-hole final back in 1999 -- but it was hardly the star-studded Sunday most had hoped for or predicted.

The next year found Darren Clarke beating Woods in the final match, but the event reverted to undistinguished finalists in each of the next two seasons, with Steve Stricker defeating Pierre Fulke in '01 (when the tournament was played in Australia for the first and only time) and Kevin Sutherland knocking off Scott McCarron one year later.

Talk about your bracket busters. Excluding the Clarke/Woods finale, none of the first six finalists in the event's history was ranked in the world's top 20 entering the tournament. When making your annual office pool selections, you could have closed your eyes, thrown darts or picked names out of a hat -- and probably fared just as well as when making educated guesses.

Those days are seemingly long gone.

For the past three years, the Match Play -- now a U.S.-based mainstay (rumors are it will leave La Costa after this year's version and move to Tucson, Ariz.) -- has been dominated by top American players, with Woods beating David Toms in the '03 final, then defeating Davis Love III, in '04 and Toms cruising to a victory over Chris DiMarco last year.

For whatever reason -- our guess is that players are taking the event more seriously since it's been established as a top tournament -- lower-ranked competitors are finding it tougher to reach the weekend, while many elite players continue to roll. Let's hope that trend continues this week. But as we've seen before in this format, anything can happen.

Match Play Challenge
Other than the four majors and the Ryder Cup, the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship is perhaps the most anticipated golf tournament of the year. Join ESPN.com's Match Play Challenge and fill out your bracket as the annual event begins Wednesday at La Costa. Join now!

Who's the new leading money-winner on tour? Look no further than Sunday's winner, Sabbatini. After working his way up the PGA Tour money list -- from 68th in 2002 to 41st in '03 to 16th in '04 -- he seemed poised for a breakout season in 2005. Instead, he had only six top-25 finishes in 26 starts -- with no result better than sixth place -- and slid to 89th in the money standings, his worst finish since his rookie season of 1999. What's changed? It all begins and ends with his putting. Entering the Nissan, he was 18th on tour in putting average -- and his place should only improve after finishing third in that category at Riviera -- up from 131st last season, 137th in '04, 124th in '03, 178th in '02 and 125th in '01.

After a third-round 65 that left him in Sunday's final grouping, Couples sounded like a man wise beyond his 46 years. "I've played here 25 years, so I have a feel for this course," he said, "but it doesn't mean I'm going to hit all the shots." It was fun to see the frenzied Riviera galleries chanting Freddie's name once again, but sad to see him fade down the stretch, making bogey on three of the final four holes on Sunday. After Couples won in Houston three years ago -- his first victory in five seasons -- he looked like a man who never thought he'd find the winner's circle again. With the way he's playing right now, however, it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see Couples capture his 16th career PGA Tour victory at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Good nugget from the ABC crew on Sunday, reporting that Craig Barlow grew up playing golf in his hometown of Las Vegas with first cousin Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers. Hmmm ... armed with that knowledge the Weekly 18 would be remiss not to come up with this recap of Barlow's week: Despite three opening-round bogeys, Barlow was "Mr. Brightside," making seven birdies to shoot 67 on Thursday. With a second-round 69, he had more reason to "Smile Like You Mean It" and another 67 on Saturday vaulted Barlow into a share of second place, thinking he could come out "On Top" in the end. Instead, a final-round 70 left Barlow with a third-place finish, but when he looks back on "All These Things That I've Done," he'll realize playing in the final group on Sunday was a terrific experience and in the end, "Everything Will Be Alright."

Entering the Nissan, Scott Verplank led the PGA Tour in putting average (the amount of putts per green in regulation) at 1.612, giving him a birdie conversion rate of 40.5 percent. How good is that number? Last year, Arjun Atwal was tops on tour at 1.710, converting just over 34 percent of his birdie chances. In fact, the difference by which Verplank led putting average No. 2 man Nathan Green (.059) was the same difference between Green and Zach Johnson and Jim Furyk, who were tied for 26th on that list.

Sometimes the putting average stat isn't a perfectly accurate depiction of how a player is putting. After all, say Verplank hit only two greens in regulation during a round; if he made both birdie putts, he'd have a terrific putting average. So let's look at putts per round, which is, quite simply, the total number of putts that a player needs per 18 holes. Amazingly, Verplank led in this category before the Nissan, too. His 27.22 putting average was .23 better than the runner-up, Brian Gay. The difference between Nos. 1 and 2 in this category wasn't as large as that in the putting average statistic, however; there were only three other players within .23 putts per round of Gay.

So what happened when Verplank had to play the famously tricky greens at Riviera this week? Well, he was hardly terrible with the flat stick but predictably couldn't keep pace with his previous averages. Verplank took an average of 28.3 putts per round for the week (finishing T-39 for the event in that category) and had a putting average of 1.842, ranking 67th. In all, he shot 69-73-73-70 and finished T-51.

No, the T.C. in T.C. Chen's name doesn't stand for Tim Clark. But the longtime pro who lost the 1985 U.S. Open to Andy North in part because of a double-hit shot -- earning the nickname "Two-Chip" -- can take heart: He has some company. In third place and chipping from the greenside rough on No. 9 during the final round, Clark committed the same faux pas, as the ball went awkwardly to the left. The result? A one-stroke penalty and eventual double-bogey. Clark shot 74 to finish T-12 for the week.

Last week, the Weekly 18 informed you about J.B. Holmes moving up to the No. 9 spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup points list. Further proof that the new weighting process will be a big deal this season: After winning at Pebble Beach last week, Arron Oberholser moved up to No. 6 behind only Woods, Phil Mickelson, Toms, Chad Campbell and Furyk, and in front of the likes of DiMarco, Justin Leonard and Kenny Perry.

More Ryder Cup talk: During a recent press conference, U.S. captain Tom Lehman spoke of the need to become a unified team in the days leading up to the event. "We'll practice as a team without question. And whether it's three foursomes, or one twelve-some, is yet to be seen, but we will be together. ... I'm not kidding about that. We will probably play a twelve-some one day and just have some fun playing alternate shot. Just all tee it up on the first tee together and away we go." Wouldn't that be something to see?

Jason Gore continues to follow his dream season of 2005 with a nightmare start to '06. Gore finished dead last at the season-opening no-cut Mercedes Championships, then failed to earn money at his next four events. The California native earned $16,258 for his T-43 at last week's Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but followed with another missed cut at Riviera. The good news is that Gore is fully exempt on tour through the end of next season, so he shouldn't feel much panic right now. The bad news is that any thoughts of reaching the Masters' field -- or even gaining a Ryder Cup berth -- seem to be fading fast.

Kevin Na competed at the Nissan Open this week, his first tournament of the season after suffering an injury to his hand when it got caught in a garage door, as Bob Harig reported on ESPN.com two weeks ago. Na shot 68-76, bogeying two of his final three holes to miss the cut by one stroke. Still the youngest player on tour for the third consecutive season, look for Na to make a full recovery, starting this week in Tucson where he lost in a playoff (along with Mark Calcavecchia) to Geoff Ogilvy last year.

Last week in this space, we brought you the travails of Steven Bowditch, who had been disqualified twice in the first four starts of his rookie season on the PGA Tour. Well, make it three for five. According to tour officials, Bowditch walked off the course after playing only nine holes in the second round of the Nissan (during which he shot a 6-over 42 on Riviera's back nine) without finiding a rules official. Not sure if the tour will fine him for such practices (player fines are not made public), but if so, he could become the first player to ever lose money on tour, as he has yet to earn a penny in five starts (three DQs and two missed cuts).

With the premier edition of the FedEx Cup concluding in mid-September next season, there won't be much reason for golf fans to tune into any of the several post-Cup events which will determine those players that could keep their playing privileges for the next season in Quest for the Card. Well, here's one: It was reported this week that two new California-based tournaments will be added as part of this fall finish, including one to be sponsored by Fry's Electronics on a private course located in Silicon Valley called The Institute, which totals about 7,900 yards and could be a monster. According to the Associated Press, some PGA Tour professionals played in an outing there last October and Fred Funk shot the lowest score: 75.

As much as the Champions Tour would love to be all about players like Greg Norman, who bring a solid Q rating to events and put fans in the galleries, it most likely never will be. That's because today's PGA Tour stars have enough money to ensure they don't need to stay competitive on a week-to-week basis; most would rather get into golf course design and other business, if current trends continue. What the senior circuit is about, though, is players like Loren Roberts, who clinched his third straight victory to start the season on Sunday -- a Champions Tour first. An eight-time winner on the PGA Tour, Roberts can contend at some shorter venues, but doesn't have the length to compete every week. That said, his iron play and short game are better than ever, meaning it's no surprise that Roberts is dominating the 50-and-over tour. Next up for the older folks: Funk (turns 50 in June) and Jeff Sluman (turns 50 in September of '07), both of whom fit the same mold as Roberts.

There's been a notion -- often initiated by American players on the PGA Tour and refuted by their international peers -- that the Nationwide Tour may be the world's second-most competitive tour. Of course, supporters of the European Tour aren't too keen on their league being dismissed as such, but they shouldn't use the last two events as examples in their case. Last week, Nationwide Tour regular Kevin Stadler ruled over a solid field at the Johnnie Walker Classic and this week saw Charlie Wi accomplish the same feat in Kuala Lumpur at the Malaysian Open. Wi, 34, has played on many tours around the world, and finished 186th on the PGA Tour money list after playing 23 events last season.

When most golfers clinch victory in a tournament, they're left to a celebratory hug with their caddie, a congratulatory handshake with their playing partner and smiles from whatever family members, if any, are in attendance. When Joo Mi Kim clinched victory at Turtle Bay, she was immediately bum-rushed on the 18th green by Christina Kim, Jeong Jang and a host of other LPGA pros, who doused the first-time champion with champagne and tackled her to the ground. As if that weren't enough, the players cajoled Joo Mi Kim into meandering across some nearby slippery rocks and into the awaiting lake that borders the green. In all, it looked less like a victory celebration than it did a sorority initiation, but it was fun to watch the camaraderie between peers.

"That's all my grandma's fault. I got my shirts out a couple days early because I was going to be real busy and it was her responsibility to put them in the suitcase and she wanted to leave them in the closet so they didn't get wrinkled. I woke up when we got here and said, 'Grandma, where are my shirts? ... Oh no. You left them at home.'"
-- Morgan Pressel, who traveled to her rookie debut without 15 hand-selected Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, which were left behind at her home in Florida. She finished T-5 at the SBS Open.

Jason Sobel is ESPN.com's golf editor. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com