Perhaps no one in the history of golf has lived up to phrase “Horses For Courses” better than Tiger Woods.  Having begun 2013 by winning for the eighth time at Torrey Pines, then later adding an eighth career triumph at Bay Hill, Woods added a remarkable eighth win at the famed Firestone Country Club via a seven-shot runaway triumph at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.  In point of fact, Woods did virtually all of his damage on Friday, when he tied the course record with a dazzling nine-under-par 61; for the other three rounds, he was even with defending champion Keegan Bradley and two strokes behind Henrick Stenson, the two men who shared second.  But Friday was an impressive day indeed, for Woods opened birdie-eagle-birdie, turned in 30, then reeled off four straight birdies at holes 10-13 to get to nine under on the day – and well within sight of a possible 59 on the par-70 Firestone layout.  Unfortunately, Woods wilted slightly under the pressure, scrambling for a great par at the 14th, then missing short birdie opportunities at the 15th and 17th before scrambling for a great par at the 18th after driving far right, into the trees.  There would be no further fireworks over the weekend, however, as Woods overcame several wayward shots to card a two-under-par 68 on Saturday, then played smart, safe golf on a breezy Sunday to cruise home with a 70 and raise the trophy.  Bradley and Stenson jointly won the battle for second place, while fourth was shared by Jason Dufner, the ageless Miguel Angel Jimenez and Zach Johnson.  The victory was Woods’ 79th on the PGA Tour (bringing him within three of Sam Snead’s record 82) and also made 2013 the 10th season in which he won at least five times.  It was also his 18th career triumphg in a WGC event – exactly six times as many WGC wins as the closest competition.................... Ending a slump which saw him log only a single top 10 (a T9 at the 2012 Frys.com Open) since the 2011 Greenbrier Classic, long-hitting Gary Woodland scrambled his way through the final round to claim the Reno Tahoe Open, winning by a solid nine points under the event's Modified Stableford scoring system.  Woodland came into Sunday with a seven point lead, owing to a strong 16-point third-round performance, but proceeded to struggle somewhat from tee to green, getting up and down thrice from greenside bunkers on the outward half before scoring his biggest blow with a 60-foot chip in for birdie after driving errantly at the short par-4 14th.  A follow-up birdie at the par-4 15th cemented his position before a bogey at the 17th and a birdie at the par-5 18th saw him home to victory.

WGC - WGC-Bridgestone Invitational  -  Tiger Woods  (265)
PGA Tour - Reno-Tahoe Open  -  Gary Woodland  (44 pts)
LPGA Tour - Ricoh Women's British Open  -  Stacy Lewis  (280)
LET - See LPGA Tour (Above)
Champions Tour - 3M Championship  -  Tom Pernice Jr.  (199)
Euro Senior Tour - Berenberg Masters  -  Steen Tinning  (207)
Web.com Tour - Mylan Classic  -  Ben Martin  (267)
E Challenge Tour -  Finnish Challenge  -  Stuart Manley  (267)

Though Brandt Snedeker certainly played some fine golf in claiming his sixth career PGA Tour victory (and his second of 2013) at the RBC Canadian Open, he will be forever indebted to Hunter Mahan for helping to make it possible.  For Mahan, after carding opening rounds of 67-64 to take the halfway lead at the Glen Abbey Golf Club, withdrew unexpectedly on Saturday morning after his wife went into labor three weeks ahead of schedule back in Texas.  That left John Merrick – fresh off a course record-tying 62 on Friday – as the new halfway leader at 11 under par with Snedeker, who’d posted opening rounds of 70-69, trailing by six.  But Snedeker indeed made Saturday “moving day,” birdieing six of his first nine holes to turn in 29, then tacking on additional birdies at the 11th, 13th and 16th to post a 63 – and launch himself all the way to the top of the leaderboard.  Thus beginning the final round one ahead of rookie David Lingmerth and two up on world number six Matt Kuchar and Jason Bohn, Snedeker played a less spectacular brand of golf on Sunday, turning in one-under-par 34, then offsetting a birdie at the 10th with a difficult bogey at the par-3 12th to remain in front going into the homestretch.  But with few among his pursuers mounting a sustained charge, Snedeker posted three straight pars before a birdie at the par-5 16th served as the clinching blow.  A quartet of players tied for second, four shots in arrears, including William McGirt (who closed strongly with a 68), Dustin Johnson (who actually drew even through 16 before carding a triple-bogey seven at the 17th), Bohn (71) and Kuchar (71).  The low Canadian in the field was John Deere Classic playoff loser David Hearn (T44), though notable also was the T49 posted by Mike Weir, whose Friday 67 showed glimpses of a return from a prolonged injury-induced slump………………Playing against a predictably light field the week after the Open Championship, Northern Ireland’s Michael Hoey claimed his fifth career European Tour title by winning the M2M Russian Open, played just outside of Moscow.  Despite carding seven Thursday birdies, Hoey opened the event somewhat quietly with 70 before picking up the pace markedly, first with a second-round 67 that included eight birdies, then via a sparkling Saturday 65 built around five birdies and an eagle, which vaulted him into an imposing five-shot 54-hole lead.  Hoey played steady golf on Sunday, parring his first seven holes before carding birdies at the 7th and 8th.  But with France’s Alexandre Kaleka (the defending champion), England’s Matthew Nixon and Denmark’s J.B. Hansen all giving chase, Hoey’s bogey at the long par-4 12th actually narrowed his lead to just two.  He played even steadier golf thereafter, however, posting a string of pars and, for emphasis, a birdie at the par-5 17th, making the ultimate margin of victory four over Kaleka and Nixon and five over Hansen who, following a tie for third at the Scottish Open, posted his second straight E Tour top 10.  

PGA Tour - RBC Canadian Open  -  Brandt Snedeker  (272)
European Tour - M2M Russian Open  -  Michael Hoey  (272)
LET - ISPS Handa Ladies European Masters  -  Karrie Webb  (200)
Champions Tour - Senior Open Championship  -  Weather Delayed (Monday finish)
Euro Senior Tour - See Champions Tour (Above)
Web.com Tour - Albertson's Boise Open  -  Kevin Tway  (261)
E Challenge Tour - Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge  -  Brinson Paolini  (269)
Symetra Tour - Credit Union Classic  -  Olivia Jordan-Higgins  (207)

After an 11-year absence the Open Championship returned to Muirfield in 2013, where throughout the week firm and fast conditions combined with some inconsistent green speeds to make for some of the toughest golf in recent Open history.  It was a week filled with the usual Major championship dramas and sub-plots but after 54 holes it appeared that the two central protagonists were Lee Westwood – still in search of the Holy Grail that is a Major – and Tiger Woods, still trying, as yet in vain, to break a Major championship drought dating to 2008.  Unlike several recent Majors wherein he contended for 36 holes before fading, Woods hung tough for 54 holes this week, trailing Westwood by two going into Sunday’s final round – but in the end, victory would again remain beyond his grasp.  Three early bogeys (two via three putting) derailed his charge and by the time he gamely added desperation birdies at the 12th and 14th, the complexion of the tournament had lifted the Claret jug well beyond his reach.  Sadly, Westwood too would stumble, though not immediately.  He offset an early bogey at the 3rd with a birdie at the par-5 5th and still held his two-stroke lead through the 6th.  But when poor ball-striking led to bogeys at the 7th and 8th, then a par at the reachable par-5 9th, the momentum had shifted significantly.  Several missed birdie putts early on the inward half denied him some necessary momentum before a bogey at the par-3 13th essentially ended his chances.  He would ultimately tie for third.  With both Westwood and Woods tumbling, the door was left open for another to seize the moment, and several candidates stepped forward.  With a remarkable run of birdies at the 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th, reigning Masters champion Adam Scott actually surged briefly into the lead.  But a tee shot blown far right at the the par-3 13th led (despite a splendid recovery) to the first of four straight bogeys and, ultimately, a tie for third.  Henrik Stenson too would be heard from, carding birdies at the 1st, 3rd and 9th (against a bogey at the 8th) to move close to lead.  His charged ultimately died with bogeys at the 12th and 13th, though a late birde at the 17th would lift him to solo second in the end.  And so the stage was left for Phil Mickelson, he of U.S. Open heartbreak (again) a month earlier at Merion, and a man whose troubles adjusting to the vagaries of links golf have long been chronicled.  But armed with confidence gained from his Scottish Open triumph of the previous week, Mickelson began Sunday five behind Westwood  and quietly moved forward, birdieing both of the outgoing par 5s to turn in 34 and push himself firmnly into the fray.  A bogey at the long par-4 10th briefly slowed his charge but birdies at the 13th and the demanding 14th came just as others the other contenders were falling by the wayside, and a superb up-and-down at the par-3 16th kept up the momentum.  And then, with everything on the line, Mickelson delivered some of the grandest clutch golf in the history of the championship, reaching the 575-yard 17th with two gargantuan 3 metals (he carried no driver) and two-putting for birdie, then carving a 6 iron approach to with 10 feet at the demanding 18th and holing the curling right-to-left putt to clinch the title.  On so difficult a golf course, the magnitude of Mickelson's Sunday performance cannot be overstated, and it must surely rate among the greatest rounds in Open Championship history.  Indeed, among the 11 men who began the day with significant chances of winning, he was the only one to break 70 - and he did so by a resounding four shots!  Truly a championship performance for the ages.

The Open Championship -  Phil Mickelson  (281)
PGA Tour - Sanderson Farms Championship  -  Woody Austin  (268)
LPGA Tour - Marathon Classic  -  Beatriz Recari  (267)
LET - Open de Espana  -  Lee-Anne Pace  (275)
JLPGA Tour -  Samantha Tavasa Girls Collection  -  Yumiko Yashida  (200)
Web.com Tour - Albertson's Boise Open  -  Jamie Lovemark  (266)
E Challenge Tour - Mugello Tuscany Open  -  Marco Crespi  (267)
Canada - The Players Cup  -  Carlos Sainz Jr.  (271)
Symetra Tour - Northeast Delta Dental Int'l  -  P.K. Kongkraphan  (207)

Nineteen-year-old Jordan Spieth made history at the John Deere Classic, becoming the youngest winner of a PGA Tour-recognized event in 82 years when he prevailed in a five-hole playoff with defending champion Zach Johnson and David Hearn.  Spieth, a former two-time USGA Junior Boys champion who first began playing in PGA Tour events at age 16, fought his way into the playoff by carding birdies on five of the last six holes, punctuated by a holed 44-foot bunker shot at the par-4 18th that Spieth called “the luckiest shot I ever hit in my life.”  That helped the former University of Texas All-American to card his third consecutive 65 at the TPC Deere Run and to make up a six-shot 54-hole deficit, though his cause was aided significantly when Johnson – who led for much of the back nine – made bogey at the 72nd to open the door to a playoff.  In the short term, the victory gives Spieth full membership on the PGA Tour (he began the year playing on sponsor exemptions) and also earned him the final spot in next week’s Open Championship at Muirfield.  In the bigger picture, Spieth became the youngest winner since Ralph Guldahl claimed the Santa Momnica Open in 1931, and the fourth youngest winner overall in PGA Tour history…………………Bouncing back from his disappointment at the U.S. Open (as well as an MC at last week’s Greenbrier Classic), Phil Mickelson announced his readiness to contend at the upcoming Open Championship by winning for the first time on a links course at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.  He did so, however, with rather more drama than he might have intended, for having come all the way back from a five-stroke 54-hole deficit to take a one-stroke 71st-hole lead, Mickelson promptly three-putted from 15 feet, allowing South African Branden Grace to join him in a playoff.  But after Grace’s third to the 18th checked up 25 feet shy of the hole, Mickelson lobbed an American-style wedge past the pin and spun it back to six inches, with the ensuing tap-in clinching the title.  The victory was his 48th worldwide but his first in Europe since claiming the Tournoi Perrier Paris – a Challenge Tour event – way back in 1993.  For Grace, a four-time E Tour winner in 2012, the runner-up finish was his best finish thus far in 2013, and his best at stroke play since opening his campaign back in January with three straight top 10s in South Africa and the Middle East.  Third-round leader Henrik Stenson, whose middle rounds of 64-66 stood him two strokes ahead on Saturday night, stayed in contention through 13 holes Sunday before three late bogeys dropped him into a tie for third with 22-year-old Dane J.B. Hansen. 

PGA Tour - John Deere Classic  -  Jordan Spieth  (265)
European Tour - Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open  -  Phil Mickelson  (271)
LPGA Tour - Manulife Financial LPGA Classic  -  Hee Young Park  (258)
Champions Tour - U.S. Senior Open  -  Kenny Perry  (267)
Euro Senior Tour - See Champions Tour (Above)
Web.com Tour - Utah Championship  -  Steve Alker  (262)
E Challenge Tour -  Swiss Challenge  -  Victor Riu  (265)
Canada - Syncrude Boreal Open  -  Riley Wheeldon  (275)
Symetra Tour - Credit Union Challenge  -  Wei-Ling Hsu (202)

Coming off a strong, one-win rookie campaign in 2012, Sweden’s Jonas Blixt was struggling through a disappointing sophomore season – with nary a top-10 finish to his credit – before an up-and-down Sunday 67 led him to a two-stroke victory at The Greenbrier Classic.  A quartet of challengers emerged over the course of the rain-delayed final round, with 54-hole leader Johnson Wagner, Jimmy Walker and Australians Steven Bowditch and Matt Jones all slugging it out over the final nine.  Blixt actually began Sunday four strokes in arrears and, playing around a three-hour weather delay that threatened to force a Monday finish, moved himself into contention with birdies at the the 5th, 9th and 10th.  Bogeys at the 11th and 13th surrounded a birdie at the par-5 12th, but it was one final birdie at the par-4 16th – the last birdie to be recorded by any of the contenders – that helped sealed the victory.  The entire foursome of challengers – Wagner, Walker, Bowditch and Jones – shared second, while defending champion Ted Potter Jr. headed up a trio tied for sixth.  The victory moved Blixt close to the top 50 in the OWR – enough to assure him one of the eight projected alternate spots available for the upcoming Open Championship.  Also gaining entry to the Open were Billy Horschel, Boo Weekley, Jimmy Walker, Harris English and Russell Henley, as the five highest players among the top 20 of the 2013 FedEx Cup points list not otherwise exempt…………… Adding another successful chapter to a wild eight-event run in which he won thrice and missed the other five cuts, Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell entered the final round of the Alstom Open de France tied for the lead with Richard Sterne, then posted a rock-solid Sunday 67 to win by four strokes.  It was a solid week for McDowell, who led the field in Greens In Regulation and missed makeable birdie putts on the 6th, 11th and 14 h holes, lest the drama might have gone out of the proceedings even earlier.  As it was, both men posted three outgoing birdies on Sunday, with a McDowell bogey at the long par-4 7th being all that separated them.  But the 2010 U.S. Open champion birdied the 383-yard 10th to draw even, moved one ahead when Sterne bogeyed the 443-yard 12th, then pulled away via his own birdie at the 484-yard par-4 17th combined with Sterne bogeys at both the 16th and 17th.  Third place was shared by a pair of men who posted closing 69s over the demanding Albatross Course of Le Golf National (the 2018 Ryder Cup site), England’s Graeme Storm and Spain’s Eduardo De La Riva.  Though a disappointed runner-up, Sterne did not come away empy-handed as he head the group of five players who, based on their standing in the Order of Merit Top 20 following play, gained exemptions to the upcoming Open Championship.  The others were two-time 2013 winner Brett Rumford, Mikko Ilonen, Thomas Bjorn and Marc Warren……………Shunsuke Sonoda won his second career Japan Tour title at the Nagashima Shigeo Invitational Sega Sammy Cup, carding a final-round 67 to cruise home three strokes ahead of Tomohiro Kondo and Yuki Komo.  Sonoda, a former high school teammate of the more touted Ryo Ishikawa, launched himself into contention via a flawless Saturday round of 61, which saw him go out in five-under-par 31 before birdieing the final six holes of the North Country Golf Club to come home in 30, thus taking a two-shot 54-hole lead.  Sonoda then continued his hot play on Sunday by carding four more birdies in his first eight holes, essentially settling matters.  Runner-up Kondo mounted a brief charge with an outgoing 30, but could only add one more birdie (at the 18th) thereafter, while Komo posted a fine final-round 66.  Rookie sensation Hideki Matsuyama also shot 66 on Sunday, lifting him into a tie for fourth – his seventh top 10 (against one missed cut) in eight 2013 Japan Tour starts…………Adilson da Silva won for the second time on the 2013 Sunshine Tour, carding a solid two-under-par 70 during a windy final round to claim the Sun City Challenge, beating upstart Jared Harvey by one.  Da Silva’s victory – his 12th on the South African circuit – was clinched by a two-putt birdie at the 530-yarde 18th after an electric run by Harvey tightened what looked at the turn to be a steady march home for the 41-year-old da Silva.  Indeed, on an afternoon when only six of the 46 men to make the cut broke par on the 3,628-yard back nine, Harvey (whose 67 was the day’s only sub-70 round) came home in 31, mixing birdies at the 10th, 15th and 18th with an eagle at the 583-yard 11th.  Bogeys by da Silva at the 12th and 14th helped the 24-year-old Harvey (a two-time winner on the developmental Big Easy Tour) make a game of it before da Silva ultimately rose to the occasion, carding his clinching four at the last.  Merrick Bremner (who closed with a 71) and Vaughn Groenewald (73) tied for third, five shots off the pace, in the tour’s last stop before taking a one-month winter break.

PGA Tour - Greenbrier Classic  -  Jonas Blixt  (267)
European Tour - Alstom Open de France  -  Graeme McDowell  (275)
Japan Tour -  Sega Sammy Cup  -  Shunsuke Sonoda  (268)
Sunshine Tour - Sun City Challenge  -  Adilson Da Silva  (207)
JLPGA Tour - Nichi-Iko Women's Open  -  Young Kim  (203)
Euro Senior Tour - Bad Ragaz Senior Open  -  Paul Wesselingh  (201)
E Challenge Tour - Bad Griesbach Challenge  -  Andrea Pavan  (269)
Canada - Dakota Dunes Classic  -  Wil Collins  (267)