Quick 18: Hoffman's hair, Fowler's selection no fluke

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Excellent, Spicoli: There's plenty to know about Charley Hoffman besides his closing 62 at TPC Boston.

Editor's note: PGATOUR.COM's Melanie Hauser will be shaking out the mental lint and pulling together the "Quick 18" on Mondays this year.

1. Well, that was easy. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin didn't go rogue with his choices -- unless you count Rickie Fowler, and Quick 18 doesn't. Perfect mix, we think. Couldn't not pick Tiger Woods or Stewart Cink or Zach Johnson. Need that stability. And Fowler? Great Walker Cup record, great talent. And came close, despite not having two full years to rack up points.

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2. An announcement that creates serious buzz became side note Tuesday morning when yahoo.com reported that the Heisman Trophy committee is stripping Reggie Bush's Heisman and asking him to give it back. Is anyone outside of golf talking anything else?

3. How many times did Quick 18 -- and everyone else -- write, "Tiger is No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking until further notice." With Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker backing up Monday, it seems "notice" is a ways off. Again. Mental lint: This was the first time Tiger shot three rounds in the 60s since last year's TOUR Championship.

4. We all know about Charley Hoffman's penchant for long Thor-like hair. And that fans call him Spicoli, Harry Dunne, Thor -- from, in order, characters in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Dumb and Dumber" and "Adventures in Babysitting" -- and friends call him The Hoff. And that his closing 62 on Monday was the best round of his career. But did you know his favorite movie is "Dumb and Dumber"? And he's also a fan of U2, Bob Marley and Jack Johnson? Those tidbits come courtesy of his website -- www.charleyhoffman.com. And, while we're at it, his website also features T-shirts for purchase, including the $19.50 gem: "Don't Hassle The Hoff ^Man."

5. Geoff Ogilvy gets his first top 10 of the year since winning the SBS Championship in the first week of the 2010 season. Seriously. The former U.S. Open champ missed the cut at the year's last three majors and missed the cut at The Barclays too. Then he ties for second and shoots from 52nd to ninth in the Playoffs standings. "The first week of January certainly feels like a long time ago," Ogilvy said before the final round. " . . . I think playing poorly for this long a period has perhaps re-inspired me to get back to where I was. I've always known that golf is hard, but this is the first year that it has been really, really hard for me."

Verplank

6. The toughest guy on TOUR? It just might be Scott Verplank, who has played through more injuries than he -- or we -- care to count. So think of this week as his plus-one. Verplank had to withdraw from Deutsche Bank with a wrist injury. He got a cortisone injection Monday and will try -- serious emphasis here -- to play at this week's BMW Championship. In case you've forgotten, he won the BMW's predecessor -- the old Western Open -- at Butler National in 1985 as an amateur.

7. Another week, another oops. Lots of them lately, huh? This one belonged to Chad Campbell, who forgot to register on site for the Deutsche Bank and was DQ'ed. The last time that happened? Brandel Chamblee at the 2002 Buick Challenge. And, no, Quick 18 hasn't forgotten the LPGA double DQ. Just still trying to sort through all the differing reports of the incident.

8. Just so you know . . . The only three-time winner this year is pony-tailed Miguel Angel Jimenez. The Mechanic beat Ryder Cup teammate Edoardo Molinari by three shots to win the Omega European Masters. Europe is still debating -- somewhat heatedly at times -- Colin Montgomerie's captains picks, but maybe they should be wondering if Jimenez might just be the most-underrated, definitely least-discussed and perhaps key member of the Euro team. Ahem. Remember that he has collected 11 of his 18 wins since the age of 40.

9. Interesting piece in the New York Times concerning the golfer-in-chief, who played five rounds of golf on his 10-day vacation. Good pub for the game that his relaxation is playing 18. So is President Barack Obama helping change the elitist perception the game has in some circles?

"We fight the elitist label all the time because people like to say we're all products of a country club environment," said Davis Love III. "Well, I came up from the cart barn part of the country club. My father worked at the club. He was the pro, and it was hard work. In a lot of ways, I think President Obama could help with the perception of golf. We know that kids all over the nation now think they can be president someday because of him. I hope they look at him playing golf and say, 'Hey, I can play that game, too.' "

10. And there was the question of Obama helping grow the game, which elicited a great punchline from wry Paul Casey: "If he's losing lots and lots of golf balls, then he'll have to buy a lot of new ones, and maybe that will spur growth. And people will find his lost golf balls and sell those as collector's items. More growth, right?"

11. Here's a tiny bit of mental lint for you: Which American player -- after Tiger -- spent the most time at No. 1? That would be Freddie Couples, who had 16 weeks in the top spot. The only other Americans to reach No. 1 are David Duval and Tom Lehman.

12. A seriously quick turnaround. One minute, pitcher Roger Clemens is in a Washington, D.C., court pleading not guilty to charges of lying to Congress. A few hours later, he's teeing it up in the Golf.com World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach, S.C. -- some 400 miles away. He asked for a late tee time in the event to keep his court date. And, in case you're wondering, Clemens, who plays to a 4, tied for 18th. His wife Debbie finished fourth in her group.

13. From the scary-but-true, remember-your-scout-camping file: A golfer was chipping from behind the fourth green at Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine, Calif., when his club struck a rock and started a fire that turned into a 25-acre blaze. The brush in the area was so dry that the fire started within seconds of him walking out of the rough. The course had just reopened after a four-month closure to resod the fairways, and adjacent homes had no damage. Just so you know, both steel and titanium can cause sparks when nicking rocks.

14. Quick 18 sends snaps to England's Laura Davies, who won her third tournament of the year -- UNIQA Ladies Golf Open -- to become the oldest Ladies European Tour winner at 46 years, 11 months. It was also the 75th win of Davies' career, but she was nervous coming down the stretch. "I was shaking. Your legs go. If your hands and your arms go then you're in trouble, but you feel your legs getting a bit shaky," Davies said. "I guess that's just the adrenaline and you're just excited about trying to win a golf tournament. If you didn't have that then you wouldn't win."

15. An app for that? More like a groovy deal. Apple's new musical social networking service Ping had to strike a deal with the golf company of the same name. PING, founded in 1959 by the late Karsten Solheim, and Apple got together and worked out the potential problem. "Like Ping, Apple carries a reputation for innovation and quality. I have always had great respect for companies that have changed and improved the ways things are done and I continue to model PING along those lines," said Karsten Manufacturing CEO and chairman John Solheim. Apple CEO Steve Jobs called his Ping "like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes.'' Bottom line, depending on which Ping you choose, you can groove to tunes or groove your game.

16. It took just one interview for Sean Foley to shoot from the hip and kick dust on former Tiger coaches Butch Harmon and Hank Haney and the Stack and Tilt boys, Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett. Speaking to Fox Sports golf writer Robert Lusetich, Foley took on Tiger's form of late under Haney ( "let's be honest about this, it's not like he was flushing it with Hank"), warned against going back to Tiger's Harmon swing ("trying to go back to that would be a huge mistake"), and the Stack and Tilt ("if it's such a great system, then why are people coming for a 'watered-down version' from me?"). Oh my. And they're not even official yet.

17. A quick addendum to last week's note on Garia's pricey golf cart. The ?39,000/$52,000 price tag was for the Garia Edition Soleil de Minuit (http://garia.dk/limited-edition/) . The basic cart prices start at ?13.999/$14.999 and the street legal Garia LSV tops out at 25 mph.

18. A BBC mea culpa. According to the Daily Record, UK's 1,000-pound gorilla somehow put a British flag next to Martin Laird's name on its world golf ranking page. Not a good idea. Laird is a Scot and has the saltire -- St. Andrew's Cross - on his belt and golf bag. BBC publicly regretted the error.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.