Bubba Watson is on the cover of this month’s Golf Digest, and here are a few outtakes from the issue’s cover shoot. You can read the article here online, in which Bubba will tell you exactly how to knock the ball a country mile. (Hint: it involves having Bubba hit it for you.) And hey, if you’ve got one of them fancy iPad things, why not check out the iPad edition by clicking right here?

Rounding up some midweek links to keep you up with what’s new in the golf world. Enjoy, and feel free to hold court in the comments below.

• And yet another person is ripping Fred Couples‘ selection of Tiger Woods to the Presidents Cup team; this time it’s Geoff Ogilvy. (To clarify, Ogilvy wasn’t pleased that Couples announced the pick so early, adding, “I’m not going to stand up and say Tiger is a horrible pick, but I’m going to say it’s very disappointing that Keegan Bradley doesn’t get to play. That’s where I’m at with it.”)  Sheesh, doesn’t anybody want Tiger there? Aside from Couples, Woods, Tim Finchem, broadcast networks and every single advertiser who’s paying money for this event, of course. [AP via Yahoo! Sports]

• Arnold Palmer‘s getting hard. Hard alcohol, that is. The famed Arnold Palmer Half & Half (half iced tea, half lemonade, and I hope I didn’t have to tell you that) is now getting spiked with alcohol. Presumably it won’t be a half-and-half-and-half, because that’d be impossible. And also probably turn you blind. Anyway, it’s Arnie. Buy it. [Dogs That Chase Cars]

• One day into the Taiwan Championship, and world-beating Yani Tseng is already in front, tied with Ai Miyazato for the lead. Of course she is. [AP via Yahoo! Sports]

• Nice sidelight to the PGA Grand Slam of Golf: all four players brought their families, including their fathers, to enjoy a few days of fine weather and fine golf in Bermuda. George Schwartzel, Gerry McIlroy, Godfrey Clarke and Mark Bradley have to be proud of their boys right about now. [Golfweek]

• Jack Nicklaus is monkeying yet again with the course layout at Muirfield Village, site of the Memorial and the first course in the world to host a Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup and Presidents Cup. Add a windmill this time, Jack! [Golf Digest]

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So in an attempt to inject a bit more life and interest into tournaments, and because we’re both inveterate gamblers who are one bad card from being out on the streets, Jay Busbee and I are playing a golf version of a football suicide pool: We each pick one golfer per tournament and see how they do against each other, straight up. Victory over the other guy gets one point, victory in the tournament gets three points. (Double for the majors.) And when we burn a golfer, he’s done for the year. It’s the last regular season PGA Tour event of the year, and so let’s go hang with Mickey and gang!

Busbee: I’m gonna close my regular season (still have Presidents’ Cup, baby!) with Tommy Two-Gloves, Tommy Gainey. He’s had something of a surge this year, with seven top-10 finishes. And if he could ever push through for a win, the dude with one of the game’s best nicknames could break huge. Huge, I say! Bring it home, Two-Gloves.

Bacon: Ahh man … let’s be honest. We’re just tossing darts at this point, and I haven’t hit the board in so long I feel like it’s 4 AM in Vegas and I’m struggling to remember which hotel is mine. So with that, I’ll throw out Davis Love III as my pick, just because I’m feeling frisky with him. Yep, that’s the one.

Last Week: Busbee picked Robert Allenby, who did a very good thing by making the cut. Bacon’s pick of Zach Johnson? Not so much. Busbee’s St. Louis Cardinals-like run continues.

Current Standings: Busbee 26, Bacon 23.

Already Used: Busbee: Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Chad Campbell, Bill Haas, Nick Watney, Tim Clark, Brian Gay, Matt Kuchar, KJ Choi, Webb Simpson, Jhonattan Vegas, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Jim Furyk, Luke Donald, Anthony Kim, Ben Crane, Zach Johnson, Sean O’Hair, Kenny Perry, David Toms, Lee Westwood, Spencer Levin, Gary Woodland, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Lucas Glover, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Charles Howell III, Bubba Watson, Brandt Snedeker, Aaron Baddeley, Rickie Fowler, Tiger Woods.

Bacon: Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, Steve Marino, Ben Crane, Jhonattan Vegas, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, Nick Watney, Padraig Harrington, Tiger Woods, Spencer Levin, Anthony Kim, Angel Cabrera, Aaron Baddeley, Pat Perez, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, David Toms, Rory Sabbatini, Chez Reavie, Jonathan Byrd, Phil Mickelson, Webb Simpson, K.J. Choi, Steve Stricker, Luke Donald, Charl Schwartzel, Jeff Overton, Rory McIlroy, Lucas Glover, Gary Woodland, Camilo Villegas, Brandt Snedeker, Kyle Stanley, Louis Oosthuizen.

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 discuss that golf curiosity that is the Money List title.

Busbee: We’re down to the final tournament of the year, and unless Luke Donald can manage to win or place in the Children’s Miracle Network Classic, Webb Simpson will win the money title this year, the most unexpected winner of that title since, well, ever. Now, we’re told that this is a big deal, and we can all salivate at how much coin Webb has pulled this year, but here’s my question for you, sir: why should we care? We can talk philosophically, logistically or competitively: why on earth are we supposed to care who makes how much money?

Bacon: I know I can be negative about these random events, but I actually don’t hate this money list run. I thought Luke Donald wouldn’t even play, but it sure would be fun if he was in the hunt come Sunday just to add some intrigue to a rather unknown event.

Also, won’t this help out a little with our Player of the Year run? That’s still up in the air, right?

Busbee: It’s weird, the competition itself I’m cool with, it’s just — hell, maybe this is the Occupy Magnolia Lane in me coming out, but the focus on money seems a bit anachronistic, given golf’s elitist history, and certainly out of tune with current events. But, as with so much else, I’m happy to point out the problems but I don’t have an easy answer for a solution.

I’d also note that at least golf is a meritocracy; in baseball, Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard earn king’s ransoms no matter whether they blast heroic homers or, oh, just to throw out a hypothetical, make the final out for their teams in staggering playoff upsets. At least in golf, you earn what you make.

So, player of the year. What do you think Donald has to do to take it? Is Keegan Bradley still even in the mix? And you think any of these guys would use some of their winnings to buy us a beer?

Bacon: I do love that about golf, just because to earn a lot on the course you really have to play fantastically.

Now, about our constant Player of the Year roulette wheel. Who do we like this week? I really think Webb ends up winning it, especially with Bradley playing at the Grand Slam of Golf this week, but I think it’ll be interesting to see who eventually gets picked, mostly because like 2009 Comeback Player of the Year award, I could see the PGA Tour just not giving this out. Is that possible? Would they just say there wasn’t a true winner of the award?

Busbee: Or they might go the other way and say EVERYBODY wins the award! Well, except for Mr. Sunday-Red, of course. I dunno…if Simpson wins the money title, I guess you have to give it to him, though it’s weird that he came up so small in some big spots. I think you’re probably right, that nobody really deserves this award, but not to give it out would be much more of an insult to the field than not giving out a Comeback Player.

What about making one of the statistical awards more prevalent? You know, baseball has home run leaders, basketball has scoring leaders, etc. … why not a birdie leader, something like that? You’d have to average it out, since it would favor the guys who play 30 tournaments a year, not 20…but seeing some guy at Disney blasting everything off the tee to win a driving average award, or going for birdie on every hole could be a lot of fun. Thoughts?

Bacon: Well, there is the Byron Nelson Award for lowest scoring average, which I guess is the golf equivalent to batting average and points in the NBA, but your idea seems like a lay-up for the PGA Tour in terms of awards and sponsors. Make Burger King sponsor the Long Drive award. Give the Burt’s Bees Putting Average award out to whatever player.

I like it, and as we’ve seen with the PGA Tour, there is nothing they like more than coming up with different ideas to make the players richer.

All right, your turn. Thoughts on the Money List? Who’s going to win it?

You might have been caught up with other things this week, but let me tell you something, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf was going down in Bermuda and Boy Hidy did we have a golf event for you.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t Phil Mickelson missing a putt on the 18th for 58, but it did give Keegan Bradley his first ever Silly Season win, and a rather flashless title of Master of the Majors Winners. Yes, Keegan took down Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke, not exactly murderer’s row of the end of 2011, but major winners nonetheless.

And with Bradley in a heated Player of the Year battle, the win can’t hurt, right?

The short answer is no, it can’t hurt. Even though it doesn’t count, just having his name and “win” in the same sentence is enough to ignite certain parts of voter’s brains. Keegan hasn’t won since his incredible PGA Championship victory, but a win here just shows that he hasn’t completely fallen off the map (And also makes Greg Norman look that much smarter).

The long answer is, well, it doesn’t really matter. Like, at all. The Grand Slam of Golf was a cool idea back when golfers didn’t make as much money as major motion picture companies. The big names would show up to just about anything for a six figure payout, and when you won a major, that meant a family trip to Hawaii or Bermuda or some place where the drinks all have umbrellas and packing the sun tan lotion is almost as important as the passport. These days, guys normally go to one Grand Slam of Golf and that’s it (see Woods, Tiger and Mickelson, Phil), because they’d rather not bother themselves with another nonsensical golf tournament (remember, most PGA Tour players have their schedules marked down like building blueprints). If this tournament had been a month ago, it might have helped Keegan’s chances at a Presidents Cup spot, but not now, and it probably won’t do much for his shot at the Player of the Year (one major, another win, but not much else in the sense of consistency for the season).

So, let’s give him the credit he rightfully deserves; in the smallest golf event you’ll ever see, Bradley played well enough to win by a shot.

It doesn’t bring the same anticipation as the yearly release of the NFL schedule, but on Wednesday the PGA Tour announced its schedule for 2012. Of course, there were a couple of minor tweaks to the schedule, but for the most part, things look very similar to the 2011 schedule.

Here are the changes you need to know about:

- The schedule includes 45 official money tournaments, which happens to be the same number as 2011; 37 of those events will occur during the regular season.

- Tour officials decided to move the final round of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions to Monday, which should allow the event to get primetime billing for once. The final round usually fell on Wild Card weekend for the NFL, and that usually meant eyeballs weren’t on the golf coverage.

- With RBC in the fold, the Heritage will get its old date back next year. After taking the slot two weeks after the Masters, the event will once again be played the week following the first major of the year.

- One year after flipping dates, the Byron Nelson and Colonial will go back to their original rotation on the tour schedule. The Nelson will be played May 14-20, while the Colonial will get May 21-27. Both events will still be played after the Players Championship (May 9-13).

- The Greenbrier Classic will be played on July 4th weekend; the event took place at the end of July during the 2011 season.

- AT&T National will be returning to Congressional CC in 2012, and will get the June 25-July 1 slot.

- The FedEx Cup playoffs will take a one week break following the BMW Championship at Crooked Stick GC.

- The Ryder Cup, set to be played at Medinah, will be the week after the Tour Championship.

- The only major shuffle in the schedule came at the end of the year. Following three Fall Series events, the tour will play two events abroad before returning back home to play the final tour event of the year, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic, on November 8-11.

I don’t have any issues with the schedule for next year, but the decision to move the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic to November just seems silly. It’s the final tour event of the year and, in my opinion, it should be played in the middle of October — not a couple weeks later to stretch the tour schedule.