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If we’ve learned something about the LPGA and PGA Tour this season, it’s that parity is alive and well on both tours. Yani Tseng and Martin Kaymer may be the top players at the moment, but they have a host of players banging on the door just waiting to take over the top spot.

As opposed to years past where it was easy to pick Lorena Ochoa or Annika Sorenstam to win a major championship, it’s become increasingly difficult to pick one from the pack of highly talented golfers. That’s why there really isn’t a wrong pick at this week’s Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major of the LPGA season.

But since I’m in the business of giving you my best guess (read: I threw darts at a board with names on it), here are the five golfers that have the best chance to take a celebratory dip in Poppy Pond at the end of the week:

Yani Tseng: The number one golfer on the planet is a logical choice at Dinah Shore. She won last season’s Kraft Nabisco and already has won win this season. While she’s not Annika or Lorena, she’s about as closest thing the LPGA has to a superstar.

Karrie Webb: Talk about a career resurgence from one the LPGA’s top players. One year after going winless on tour, Webb already has two victories in three starts, making her the prohibitive favorite going into the tournament. She’s also a two-time Nabisco winner.

Paula Creamer: I know, I’m really going out on a limb with Creamer. A year removed from thumb surgery, Creamer’s game is in top form after a second place finish last week at the Founders Cup. Sure, her best finish is a tie for 15th at this event, but I’ve got a hunch Creamer will be in contention on Sunday.

Suzann Pettersen: Like Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open, Pettersen has never been able to close the deal at the Kraft Nabisco. She’s been close, oh, three out of the last four years, finishing in second on three occasions. She’s due for a win.

Michelle Wie: I’m expecting to get ripped for this pick, but I really don’t care. Wie is done with classes, which means she can concentrate on just golf. She finished in seventh at the Kia Classic and has some history at the Kraft Nabisco, finishing in tie for third and fourth as a amateur. I think her maturation over the last year has put her in a good position for a major championship run.

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Welcome to Teeing Off, where Devil Ball editor Jay Busbee and head writer Shane Bacon take a day’s topic and smack it all over the course. Suggest a future topic by writing jay.busbee@yahoo.com, or hit us on Twitter at @jaybusbee and @shanebacon. Today we toss around the idea of playing or resting the week before a major championship. With the Shell Houston Open this week and the Masters next, is it better to sit out or play on?

Bacon: As Masters week rolls around, the debate comes up every year; should a player tee it up the week prior in hopes of landing some momentum or should they take the week off, rest, and be prepared for Augusta National? I’m in Camp Play. If it was me, I’d want to be out there competing, on a tough golf course in Redstone, working on things to use next week at the Masters on the golf course. I like the idea of continuing to keep that golfing mentality all the way into Augusta. Doesn’t it always seem that college football teams are way more rusty when they have a month off before bowl season?

Busbee: Uh-oh…we’re in agreement here. This is the golf equivalent of whether it’s better to win a playoff spot early and rest, or play right to the end of the season and maintain momentum through the playoffs. There’s the physical element, keeping the swing precise and the muscles finely tuned, but really, a week off won’t totally disrupt that. Where I think the extra week of play helps is on the mental side, where you’re not spending days and days thinking that I’M ABOUT TO PLAY AUGUSTA. Even the pros admit that it can be daunting, teeing it up where legends have played. Athletes play the best when they don’t have time to think about what they’re about to do…and what’s an off week but another seven days to think about what’s to come?

Bacon: Yes, just the thought of playing Augusta National would ruin me for months on end, so anything to distract you is probably a good thing. But, it is worth mentioning that we might be on the wrong side of the debate here. Since 1960, only two players have won the Masters after winning the week before. That was Sandy Lyle in 1988 and Mr. Phil Mickelson in 2004. So maybe resting is the way to go? For me, I’d still want to play, but it seems resting has a way better percentage of success than not. We’re wrong here, right?

Busbee: Well, yeah, but that’s a given. Thing is, I’m not sure that winning should necessarily be the goal the week before. Sorry, Houston, but I think that the best thing to do if you’re a legit competitor at Augusta is to use the week before to make sure your best weapons are at their peak. Get comfortable with your driver, your short game, your flat stick, and if a win comes from that, so much the better. Kind of the equivalent of getting your starting rotation in order for the playoffs. (I love meaningless cross-sport comparisons.)

Oh, and by the way, don’t tell anyone, but I know where there’s a way into Augusta National. Meet me at Rae’s Creek just outside the fence…and bring your snorkel.

Bacon: Yeah, good point. It isn’t so much about winning as gaining confidence heading into Masters week. I mean, how many wins do good players even have in a year now? Two? Maybe three? Being in contention is just as important, and if you can do that in Houston, you might just give yourself the momentum one needs to tear up Augusta.

Alright, off to the aquatic store to do some shopping …

Now your thoughts … would you play or rest before a major, and which do you think is the smartest move for a pro golfer?

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The Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game series is legendary, an opportunity for everyone from half-drunk college kids to grandmothers to tee it up at Pebble Beach, Sawgrass, St. Andrews and so many of golf’s other green cathedrals. (For most of us, it’s the closest we’ll ever get.) But for all the years, all the millions of copies sold, there was always one white whale lurking out there: Augusta National. What would it be like to play Augusta in April, challenging Amen Corner or approaching the green at 18, the famed clubhouse in the background?

Friends, it’s now here, and it’s awesome.

Let’s get this out of the way first. There’s something inherently geeky about getting jazzed to play a pixilated version of the world’s most famous golf course. It’s just colors on a screen; you’re just working a piece of plastic. It’s no more like "real" golf than Guitar Hero is like playing a real guitar. We all know this, we all go in with this awareness ahead of time. We’re all fine with it.

Now, to the game. EA’s developers undertook a covert mission last summer to film every square inch of Augusta’s pristine grounds, and it shows. Every fairway, every green, every bunker, every bend in Rae’s Creek is exactly as you’ve seen it your whole life. Say what you will, but standing on the tee at 12 and trying to drop your ball onto the green without sending it into the azaleas or the water is a video game experience unlike any other, to coin a phrase.

EA tapped into this feeling with one of its ads, and the fact that the actors here got to play the real Augusta only makes me slightly want to throw up with jealousy:

(Full disclosure: EA provided us a Wii copy of the game in advance for review purposes, but alas, did not throw in a trip to Augusta to compare it with the real thing.)

As for the gameplay itself, if you’ve played a Tiger Woods game at all in the last decade-plus, you know the basics, so we won’t bother with that. Swing at ball, hit ball. You can club up or down, you can choose from a bunch of different swing patterns that range from arcade-easy to real-world impossible. You can outfit your golfer however you’d like, you can play a career that takes you from a hometown tourney all the way to the majors. It’s all as you remember it.

What separates TW12 is, of course, Augusta, and it begins with the gentle tinkling piano music on the game’s splash screen. You can play Augusta right off the bat, and of course that’s what I did, heading straight to 13 to replicate Phil Mickelson‘s miracle shot out of the trees. (After a couple attempts, I did … and I didn’t miss the ensuing eagle putt.)

One of the sweeter features of the game is "Masters Moments," where you get your chance to replicate some of the greatest Masters moments in history. Can you chip in on 16, like Tiger did in 2005? Can you eagle 13, like Arnold Palmer did in 1958? Can you chip in from off the green at 11, like Larry Mize did in 1987? Here, you get your chance at those and six more.

But it’s not just Augusta in the game; there’s a phenomenal variety of courses, depending on your operating system, including Augusta’s par-3, Bethpage, Celtic Manor, East Lake, Harbour Town, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst No. 2, Sawgrass, St. Andrews and oh so many more. Some are on the disc itself, others are available as downloadable content from various gaming networks. You can play mini-golf on some tiny courses, you can play disc golf at many of the big ones (but not Augusta, oh no), and you can hone your skills on practice ranges or duel your fellow Augusta devotees online.

Bottom line: Now that Augusta is on board, this is as perfect as a golf video game can get. Save one afternoon’s greens fees and grab this one. You won’t regret it, though your spouse/significant other/children/friends/boss certainly will. And who knows, maybe a certain well-known golfer will be able to use it to improve his game. Swing away, friends!

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Any golf fan worth their weight in balatas will you tell that the best professional without a win is Steve Marino. Now 31, Marino has four second place finished and two thirds, the most recent close call coming last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The leaders were falling back, and Marino kept his wits about him. One of the things I’ve always said about first time winners in anything (PGA Tour, Nationwide, or majors) is that it seems now, with all the money and pressure that comes with a victory, falling into a win might be the best medicine. Marino never won on the Nationwide Tour. He has two victories on the Gateway Tour in his career, with one aided by a second round 59 at an extremely difficult golf course in Scottsdale. But it seems Marino can’t find it when he has to.

After birdies on nine and 10, and a water ball by eventual champion Martin Laird, Marino was up three on the field with just eight holes to play, but he couldn’t close the deal. Two buried lies in bunkers on 15 and 17 cost him three shots and he lost to Laird by one. It was, in a sense, the most painful way to lose a golf tournament. Come from behind, jump ahead of everyone, and then give it all back in a matter of a few holes.

So with that said, does it seem like Marino will ever close the deal? He has three top-fives this season, and if he continues to stand on the tracks, the winning train will smack him, but are the nerves too much? At Turnberry in 2009, Marino opened with rounds of 67-68 to find himself in the final group on Saturday at a major, but he closed with two nasty rounds of 76-75 to finish tied for 38th. He has been a part of a playoff that didn’t go his way. And on Sunday, he was right where he needed to be with a few holes left, but bad decision making on 15, and a poor shot on 17 cost him.

Do I think he will eventually find a way to win? Sure, he seems too talented to go his whole career without holding the trophy. But as the runner-up finishes continue to pile up, those nasty golfing demons will continue to dance in that big noggin of his, and closing out that 72nd hole will get tougher and tougher.

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Anybody remember newspapers? Big chunks of paper that got ink all over your hands? Yeah, back in the old days of 1998, that’s how we used to get our news. It took forever — they only showed up once a day — and when we commented on stories, only our dog heard us. Good times.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the Sunday paper was (and, I guess, still is) Parade magazine, a quickie lifestyle guide packed with not-particularly-funny cartoons and that strange weekly Q&A with that ultrasmart lady. And this week, it featured one of our own: Phil Mickelson, who discussed his family, his troubles and his best-known rival.

Now, this being Parade, and aimed at an audience which includes members who think that "Devil Ball" is Satan’s Christmas party, the main interview itself is pretty family-friendly and family-focused. "Amy and I have always said we wanted to grow old together," Mickelson says in the interview. "We just didn’t know old was going to be 38 and 40."

Of course, the secret of Phil’s appeal may lay as much in who he isn’t as who he is, as this excerpt shows:

In this era of golf, Mickelson’s name will always come after Tiger Woods‘s. He is the anti-Tiger, though not because he’s gracefully weathered the obstacles life has thrown at him while Tiger is still stinging from self-inflicted wounds. He’s the anti-Tiger because on the course he plays a mild-mannered, sometimes bumbling Clark Kent to Woods’s Superman. And fans love him for it. He never looks chiseled, never seems invincible, and—despite 38 PGA wins—has never been No. 1 in the world. He’s been faulted for taking too long to win his first major (in his 12th year as a pro) and for making too many suicidal shots at critical moments. But throughout his nearly 20-year professional career, he has had the same caddie, the same manager, and the same wife.

Over at Golf Digest, there are excerpts of the interview that are far more golf-focused. In comparing himself to Woods, Mickelson says, "I’m much more emotional. I’ll have highs and I’ll have lows and I’ll be much more up and down. He is very even keeled and somehow he’s been able to be even-keeled at the highest level of performance."

It’s not a groundbreaking interview, but it helps clarify what we all know about Phil. Check it out. And make sure to clip some coupons, too.

Phil Mickelson: ‘I couldn’t be any luckier’ [Parade]
Phil Mickelson: Parade extras [Golf Digest]

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