On the same weekend as the vettiest of PGA vets in Rocco Mediate was winning on the tour, one of the greenest of LPGA rookies was winning in the LPGA. And much like Rocco, Beatriz Recari needed a last-second putt to hold off a charging field. But she did, and she’s got her first-ever LPGA win with a 13-under, one-shot victory.

Mostly Harmless, the best LPGA blog on this or any other planet, offers up this handy play-by-play on the thrilling back nine. Your cast of characters includes Recari, Gwladys Nocera, Michele Redman, Karine Icher and Wendy Ward:

Michele bogeyed 10 to fall out of the lead tie.  Ward and Icher birdied 11, drawing to within two and three respectively.  Nocera birdied 13 to draw within one.  Recari responded immediately by doing the same to open up a two-shot lead.  Mirroring each other again, Ward and Icher birdied 14 to stay within two and three shots.  Beatriz responded again, birdying 14 to open up a three-shot lead with only four to play.  She parred 15 and 16 but bogeyed 17, taking a two-shot lead to the 18th tee.  Nocera birdied 18 to force Beatriz into parring 18 to avoid a playoff….which she did. 

Clutch! Now, look, there’s no way around this — Recari is a highly attractive young woman. And until this weekend, she was verging on golf’s version of Anna Kournikova, attractive but not particularly victory-minded. Before this weekend, Recari had only made the cut in three of her first 13 stroke-play events.

But she’s a legit winner now, and like it or not, she’s more marketable than most of her colleagues. Question is, how do she and the LPGA capitalize on it? Do they capitalize on it at all? (Let’s table the whole "differing standards for male and female golfers" business. The LPGA needs any leg up — no pun intended — it can get.) ‘Twill be interesting to see Ms. Recari’s next move, no doubt. 

While you were watching your
favorite NFL team on Sunday afternoon, the Golf Channel was quietly
broadcasting one of the greatest PGA Tour finishes in some time.  

It’s not often that the Golf
Channel gets to air an entire tournament on the PGA Tour,  with CBS
and NBC handling most of the weekend coverage, but with the Fall
Finish in full swing, the network assumed coverage of all four rounds
of the remaining events left on the tour schedule.  

Needless to say, it was a great

week to be the lone channel providing golf coverage, as Rocco Mediate,
Alex Prugh, Bo Van Pelt and Rickie Fowler turned the Frys.com Open into
a shootout that produced a quality winner in Mediate, as well as quite
possibly the best back-to-back shots in tour history. 

For as much flack as the tour
gets for running the golf season into the fall and winter months, this
week’s event was just another reason why the silly season for golf
is still worth watching – so long as the tour does a couple of things
they did this week, such as putting the pins in birdie positions and
adding a drivable par four late in the round.

Sure, it might not produce
finishes like this every week, but if the tour could somehow find a
formula that produced the quality that was on display in California,
the number of naysayers calling for the Fall Finish’s head would
almost certainly decrease.

17th heaven

There should be a mandatory
rule on the PGA Tour that every tour stop needs to have at least one
gimmick hole on the course. While that’s almost to implement, the
295-yard 17th at CordeValle proved that short, drivable par
4s definitely add something extra to the telecast. 

With water fronting the right
side of the green, the hole was the perfect risk-reward for golfers
with enough length to get home. As Peter Oosterhuis noted early on in
Sunday’s telecast, "it’s a hole that will certainly produce a
lot of eagles and others."

It did just that all week,
drawing rave reviews from the players and the network staff. "It’s
gaining a reputation as a great hole this week," said on-course
commentator
Billy Ray Brown.

"It makes you want to go
out there right now and take a driver at it," said Brandel Chamblee.
"It’s going to be a heck of a lot of fun to watch." 

How fun was the hole? Put it
this way: Bo Van Pelt, who was tied for the lead at the time, was seen
laughing on the 17th tee, wondering what club he should take.

The shot forced you to be ballsy and go for the green – even if your
brain told you it was a bad idea.

It certainly was a fun hole
- especially during Sunday’s final round, where Alex Prugh almost
holed his tee shot, drawing roars and child-like laughter from the Golf
Channel booth. And when everyone figured it couldn’t get any better,
Mediate holed his shot from the fairway for eagle to take a two-shot
lead.

Say all you want about gimmick
holes, but this one did its job. It also made for some compelling
television
on Sunday afternoon.

Now tell me again why these
holes are bad for golf?

More follows.

Everybody loves Rocco

Rocco Mediate is like a puppy:
It doesn’t matter how bad he looks during a tournament week, you’ll
still love him when it’s all said and done. Mediate, of course, earned
that credibility after the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.  

While he’d been battling
back injuries and other ailments going into the week, he was right there

on Sunday, contending for another PGA Tour title. The Golf Channel’s
Terry Gannon and Brandel Chamblee put Mediate’s popularity into
perspective
during Saturday’s third round.

"Rocco Mediate may be the
most fun to watch when he’s playing well out here. It seems like Torrey
Pines and the U.S. Open was a long time ago, and lot has happened to
him since then, but here is again finding the magic again this week,"
said Gannon.

"He’s very popular with
the fans, but also with his peers. There’s just something about him
that allows him to connect with so many people," Chamblee said.  

Indeed, there is something
about Mediate that makes average golf fans pull for him, no matter how
he’s playing.

All week long, Mediate was
the talk of the tournament, getting as much air time as Rickie Fowler,
the big name at the event.

Fowler’s future

It was clear from the outset
of Thursday’s first round that Rickie Fowler was the marquee name
at the Frys.com Open. Golf Channel made it a point to have him in the
opener on Friday, as well as including short interviews with him
throughout
the four day telecast on subjects ranging from his experience playing
in last season’s Fall Finish to the Ryder Cup.  

But the most intriguing
discussion
of the week regarding Fowler came on Friday, when Terry Gannon and
Brandel
Chamblee discussed the 21-year-old’s future.

"So you look ahead, project;
you don’t have a crystal ball, but does he become someone like Davis
Love with twenty wins and a major, or Zach Johnson with seven wins and
a major?" said Gannon, posing the question to Chamblee.  

"You know, he’s 5′ 9","
Chamblee said. "and for you to play the game at a superstar level
these days, with rare exception, you have to play the game with high
power, and he has to go all-out. It’s clear his golf swing is all-out,
all the time. He doesn’t have the ability of a Davis Love, Tiger Woods
or Freddie Couples to lay back and sneak around a golf course and air
it out. But it wouldn’t surprise me if he went on to have double-digit
victories and major championships."

While it’s obvious there
are many different opinions when it comes to Fowler’s future, I’m
not sure anybody out there would debate the fact that he’s one of
the best young stars in the game today.

Leveling the playing field

Another week, another new golf
course for the Fall Finish. Last week it was Sea Island, and this week
it was CoderValle in San Martin, Calif., a course that really confused
golfers on the putting surface.

But if there’s another thing
golfers had to keep an eye on, it was the ever-changing lines to various

holes on the course throughout the day.

Brandel Chamblee made the
interesting
note during Thursday’s telecast: "There’s a lot of elevation change
out here that certainly does change the way players go at these holes.
You also have a number of cross-bunkers out here where you need to make
sure you take the right line. Lines change from the morning to the
afternoon;
lines change during different times in the day."   

Notables:

• What kind of role
do vice-captains play at the Ryder Cup? If you believe Paul Goydos –
one of Corey Pavin‘s vice-captain picks at this year’s Ryder Cup
– they’re useless. "I was pretty worthless to the team," Goydos
said, jokingly, to the Golf Channel’s Scott Walker after Thursday
first round.

• The
colored numbers
next to golfers names during the FedEx Cup? Yeah, they’re not going
away. The Golf Channel had them in play again this week, using them
to inform viewers where players stood in relation to the 125th
spot on the money list.

• Once again, the
crowds were nonexistent at a Fall Finish event. While Sea Island (last

week’s venue) and CordeValle are certainly in scenic areas of the
country, it’s obvious the venues aren’t attracting crowds. Sure,
they look good on television when you need a quick shot of the ocean
or vineyards, but does it make sense financially to broadcast in
remote
portions of the country?

Quotables:

"The thing that worries players

the most this week is losing their job," – Golf Channel’s Brandel
Chamblee on what’s at stake over the next couple of weeks for
players on the 125 bubble.

"Where you’re struggling,
it looks workmanlike. But when you’re winning, it looks regal."
- Golf Channel’s Terry Gannon, commenting on Rocco Mediate’s
one-knee putting stance. 

Say this for Greg Norman: the man doesn’t give up.

Just six months after his divorce from Chris Evert, and after a divorce from his first wife that reportedly cost $103 million in settlement, Norman announced that he’s getting married once again.

According to the Daily Mail, the 55-year-old Shark is now engaged to Kirsten Kutner, a 41-year-old Australian interior designer. (No, he didn’t propose to Martina Navratilova, though that would’ve been funny for so many reasons.)

So how’d Norman open negotiations? With a measly six-carat diamond ring. Not bad. But then, Norman knows how to blow it out; in addition to his nine-figure divorce settlement above for 25 years of marriage to first wife Laura, he also threw a $2 million-plus Bahamas wedding with Evert, and that marriage went south after just 15 months.

There’s dispute over why exactly things fell apart with Evert, and since it’s marital brawling, you’d have a better chance of seeing Norman close out Augusta than get the true story. Regardless, we wish the happy couple all the good in the world. And, for the Shark’s sake, we expect there’ll be a bulletproof prenup.

There was a time when Padraig Harrington strode the world like a colossus. Two straight majors in 2008, and he appeared ready to challenge Tiger Woods for dominance over the next five years.

But then Harrington inexplicably decided to monkey with his swing, Woods had to recover from a knee injury (the one that kept him out of the field for Harrington’s 2008 wins) and later encountered a fire hydrant, and the rivalry-to-be was the rivalry that never was.

Indeed, while Woods did win after his 2009 return from a knee injury, Harrington didn’t, going two long years without a victory anywhere, in anything.

That’s over now, as Harrington captured the Iskandar Johor Open in Singapore over the weekend. He posted a -20 to win, so he wasn’t exactly battling the course, but he was still fighting through his cantankerous swing. 

"I got a lot of breaks," he said afterward. "Things went my way all four days.
There’s no doubt that it was my week to win. If you had followed
me for the four days, I don’t think anyone would have questioned
that my name was written on the trophy before the tournament
started."

That kind of confidence is essential to a golfer, but even more so when you can hardly remember your last victory. For most of the last couple years, Harrington appeared well past his prime. And while this is just one event in a nearly-forgotten corner of the schedule, feeling confident instead of confused on the course is a huge advantage.

aOn Sunday evening, I was roaming through the San Jose airport when I stumbled into one of the sports bars for some grub only to see some familiar faces. Chad Campbell, Paul Goydos, and Dean Wilson were all huddled in a corner of the bar, enjoying some adult beverages as they, like any male in the world, anxiously awaited with giddy excitement their flight to Las Vegas.

No matter your age or level of fame, landing at McCarran Airport is one of the true mysteries left in this world. You don’t know what will happen over the next however many days, but you do know it will be memorable. This week, those three players, along with a list of others, will take over Sin City for the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospital for Childrens Open, a PGA Tour event in Las Vegas. As any golfer knows, alcohol and gambling are essential crutches to keep this sport alive, so my question is this; why not have this event earlier in the season when people still care about golf?

Sure, the field isn’t terrible. Anthony Kim will be there, along with Hunter Mahan, John Daly (obviously), and Rickie Fowler. It’s just … Vegas and golf are a match made in heaven (hell?), so why not make it a marquee event during the season, when the top names in golf are still excited about PGA Tour events.

You’re telling me if this tournament was a few weeks between two big events, Phil Mickelson isn’t flying to Vegas from California to play and gamble? We all know from recent events that Tiger Woods has been a Vegas fan, so if this event brought in some big hitters, maybe Woods could pencil this in his limited schedule.

Sure, it might be a stretch, but the Timberlake should be a marquee event. It has all the makings of a great golf tournament; a solid name to go with the event (JT), a charity that benefits from it (Shriners) and a place that everyone, and I mean everyone, likes to visit. If Harbour Town is the place you take the wife and kids, Vegas is where you bunk up with two other PGA Tour stars and enjoy the life you’ve built for yourself.

It’s a great Fall Series event, and brings attention to an otherwise pointless time in the golf season, but the event should be moved so that it gets more attention.

Who said the Fall Series is dull? Rocco Mediate, one of golf’s all-around good cats, won the Frys.Com Open on Sunday with one of the more heartstopping two-hole finishes in recent memory. It was Rocco’s first win since 2002 — a bit surprising, but remember, he didn’t actually win that 2008 epic against Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines — and it was memorable indeed.

Mediate was coming off three days in which he carded an eagle each day, and he entered Sunday with a three-shot lead. It didn’t take him long to give that away, though, as he recorded five bogeys in the first 12 holes. He briefly gave up the lead on the 15th hole, and then played a game of anything you can do, I can do better with Alex Prugh and Bo Van Pelt.

On the 295-yard 17th, Van Pelt drove the green off the tee. Mediate laid up, and Prugh followed by sticking the ball to within a few feet of the cup. Yep, he nearly aced a par-4. 

Mediate followed up with the shot of his career — a 111-yard eagle, his fourth of the week, that gave him a two-shot lead over Van Pelt and Prugh.

And it wasn’t over. Both Van Pelt and Prugh birdied the 18th, and Mediate again played slightly safe. That left him with a four-foot par putt for the win, and sure enough, Mediate drained it.

"Do you believe what just happened out there?" Mediate said after the round. "I have a
job again." 

Had this happened at Augusta or Pebble Beach, it would have been hailed as a win for the ages; since it was "just" at the Frys.com, it’s a win for, well, mid-October. Still, it’ll suit Rocco and his fans just fine.