ESPN Golf

Now that the final competitive golf shot has been struck here in the States with the completion of last week's Target World Challenge, it's time for This Week In Golf to reflect on a six-pack of memories ... before the 2006 season starts up in just a few weeks with the Mercedes Championships the first week of January.

There's an interesting logic TWIG has heard kicked around our office here in snowy Wilton, Conn., suggesting Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam as Golf Digest's co-Players of the Year. Well, we're not big believers in anything "co" -- co-national champions, cohabitation, Dawn Coe-Jones, Howard Cosell -- and certainly not co-Players of the Year. That said, Tiger won four fewer times than Annika did, but he did so against far better competition top to bottom and without always having his "A" game. That's what separates his season from Annika's -- the intangibles of rebuilding a swing and seeing the fruits of his labor bear a half-dozen wins, including two majors. And remember, he was four strokes away from potentially winning the Grand Slam.

There were plenty of them -- including three straight chip-ins by yours truly to open our annual Seitz Cup competition (a Ryder Cup-style competition between Golf Digest and Golf World) -- but they all pale in comparison to that magical moment on Sunday at Augusta when Woods' chip shot from just behind the 16th green danced up to the hole, took a peek inside and fell in. It was a modern-day Shot Heard 'Round the World, and was as indelible a moment as Bobby Thompson's epic home run, Willie Mays' over-the-shoulder basket catch, Michael Jordan's jumper against Craig Ehlo and the Cleveland Cavaliers or The Catch by Dwight Clark from Joe Montana.

At the start of the season, Darren Clarke wasn't sure how much, or even if, he would play this year because his wife Heather is battling breast cancer. Imagine going to work every day, in some faraway place, while the person closest to you is dying. She's had her ups and downs through the year -- as has Darren -- but she encouraged him to play. The result was a half-dozen top 10s in Europe and five more here in the states. Clarke said he was playing this season for her, and judging by how Clarke has handled himself on and off the course, he deserves this award hands down.

The best week of the year for TWIG? PGA Tour Q School -- although not for the ones playing for their jobs. After all, how'd you like your future, for the next year, at least, to be determined over six teeth-grinding, stomach-churning days? Not to mention the 164 others trying to grab one of the 30 or so spots you're after. It's a strange feeling, Boo Weekley told us, because unlike at a regular tour event, you're pulling for the guy next to you. Of course, you also don't want him to take your job, either. The best part of the week, though, wasn't spent on the course, it was the time spent with Weekley, Bill Haas and Notah Begay III as we chronicled their experiences through golf's most grueling week. Here's what TWIG can tell you from that: The members of the Haas family are some of the nicest, most genuine people we've ever met, and they love their college hoops; Weekley would be a star in a reality TV show about golf and hunting/fishing; and Begay remains one of the more insightful golfers around.

Those of you from the Deep South will probably tell us to quit complaining (and for the record, we're not), but Baltusrol was more like Bake-us-all, with temperatures soaring over 100 degrees during the PGA Championship. Thankfully, Golf World fashion editor Annmarie Dodd outfitted a few colleagues with golf shirts that had "wicking" technology. They definitely withstood the test. A few other shirts didn't. They could still stand up on their own, if we hadn't tossed them. Phil Mickelson didn't seem to mind, though. With Tiger having hopped a plane home the night before, Mickelson killed the story of the year by hanging on to win an all-important second major.

Last but not least, take your pick between a reporter who called a rules infraction on Michelle Wie to the officials' attention two days after it happened, and Colin Montgomerie, who pretty much denied taking an improper drop at the Indonesian Open even though replays showed otherwise. The videotape never lies, but apparently this wasn't the first "incident" for Monty, who was suddenly having skeletons drug out of his closet by colleagues on the European Tour like it was spring cleaning. Montgomerie lost a lot of respect among his peers in what was otherwise a comeback year for the Scot, and for that he gets the goat horns slapped on his head.