Quick 18: Woods, Stallings, all-star field at Bridgestone

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Tiger's much anticipated return to the course adds to the all-star field including Mickelson, McIlroy, and Clarke at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational.

1. Questions. Lord do we have questions for -- and about -- Tiger Woods. Is his left knee healthy? Is he really ready to come back? Why Bryon Bell on the bag? Need we go on? Let's just say it will be an interesting start to the week. Just don't expect to get all the answers you want.

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2. Gotta say it. If he is healthy and ready to go . . . Tiger owns Firestone. He's won the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational seven times since 1997. What does that mean this week? Just great mental lint. But just so you know, his buddy Michael Jordan told an Australian newspaper last week, "I think he's waiting to explode again."

3. Tiger's return may be the newsmaker, but you don't have to look far to find something to chew on in the all-star field at Bridgestone. Rory McIlroy is the betting favorite, while Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia's games are trending, Nick Watney, Gary Woodland and Dustin Johnson top the list of guys who hit the fool out of the ball, Lee Westwood is the best player yet to win a major and Hunter Mahan is the asterisk (defending champ). Phil Mickelson doesn't want to peak too early (think the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters), but this who's-who will give us some good thoughts heading into the final major of the year.

4. The biggest eye-popper this week? It wasn't rookie Scott Stallings coming off a string of missed cuts and one top-10 and winning The Greenbrier Classic in a playoff. Or grinder Olin Browne winning the U.S. Senior Open. It was caddie Damon Green contending at the Senior Open until bogeying three of the last five holes. Green, whose day job is caddying for Zach Johnson, didn't have a lot of practice on the run-up to qualifying for and playing in the Senior British Open, then heading to Ohio and finishing T13. If you're not impressed, you should be. And one last thing: Green is a celebrity, not a caddie, at the Zach Johnson Foundation Classic today in Cedar Rapids.

5. Two weeks ago, Q-18 was thinking Browne was pretty impressive as an on-course reporter at the British Open. Then he goes out and duels Mark O'Meara for the Senior U.S. Open. He's had the game -- well, ever since he picked the game up at Occidental College at age 19 -- and he had five straight top-10s to start the season. Three wins on the TOUR, and now he's got his first Champions Tour win and a senior major. Players -- and major champs -- still waiting to win a plus-50 event? Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Cal Peete, Mark Calcavecchia, Hal Sutton and Corey Pavin.

6. Back to Stallings. He wasn't a surprise because well, that's been the theme of the year. He may, however, be the most gregarious first-time winner this year since, oh, Jhonny Vegas.

7. Best player in the game right now? It's Yani Tseng. Think Tiger in his prime. No one else is even close. She's now won four of the last eight LPGA majors and five of the last 15. And she's only 22. And, hey, she could have won three of the year's four majors -- Stacy Lewis came from behind to beat her at the Kraft Nabisco. She's pushing limits that even make Annika Sorenstam shake her head. Not only does Tseng have the shots -- she came from behind to win her second straight Women's British Open Sunday -- she's also engaging. If she could only figure out the U.S. Women's Open, she'd have a Grand Slam. Until, of course, the Evian Masters becomes the women's fifth major.

8. Anthony Kim didn't finish what he started, but . . . .the swagger is coming back. He had it at the Ryder Cup. He had it when he won the 2010 Shell Houston Open. He found out how quickly things can change when he had thumb surgery; that 62 in the third round at the Greenbrier Classic got our attention. The closing 74? Seen it before. The T5 at the British Open? Impressive. Don't be surprised to see him in the mix at the PGA Championship in Atlanta.

9. Happy 50th Birthday to Brad Faxon who makes his Champions debut this week at the 3M Championship. The only cut he's made this year on the TOUR is at his and Billy Andrade's CVS Caremark Charity Classic, but this guy is one of the best putters in the game, so look out.

10. Didn't pay attention when Q-18 told you to keep an eye on Hale Irwin at the Senior Open, did you? The man continues to defy time and age. He shot his age -- 66 -- in the third round, then closed with a 68 to tie for fourth. He finished fourth in the Senior PGA, too.

11. Just a thought . . .Tiger's wins used to move the markets. Now it's Congress. Could we return to used to? The economy could use it.

12. About Rory McIlroy's spat with television analyst Jay Townsend . . . Townsend criticized McIlroy's caddie JP Fitzgerald once too often in 140 characters and it took off from there. The lesson here is think before you tweet. Your first thought might not be the best if it is entertaining. While we're on JP, did you know he beat Darren Clarke in the semifinals of the 1987 Irish Amateur Close then lost in the finals to a local amateur? And no, he never lets Clarke forget. "No matter how often he gets at me about it, he knows in his heart it was a fluke; that he got up and down from all over the place,'' Clarke said.

13. Q-18 thought it, but Paul Azinger tweeted it . . . for years Mark O'Meara's first name has been "Tiger's good friend." Other tweet of the week comes from Joe Ogilvie on Washington: (@Joe Ogilvie)This is like every college student who waits to finish his/her 15 pager until the night before, inevitably it gets finished. #debtceiling

14. Break-up of the week? Inveterate swing tinkerer Padraig Harrington has parted company with Bob Torrance, the man who took him from raw talent to three-time major champ. Harrington insists the split is more of a temporary set-aside. "I think it comes down to the fact that I want to spend more time working on my mental game and my short game than necessarily beating balls," he told the Irish Independent. Torrance told the paper he thought Harrington, who turns 40 this month, is "going down the wrong road . . . If he goes down that road too far, he won't come back. You cannot make changes at 40 in golf. You can make them in your 20s, but once you get to 40 it's too late.'' Harrington's always been his own man. Maybe some quality time with brain coach Bob Rotella is all he needs.

15. Keep an eye on . . . Irish Open Simon Dyson. Another Chubby Chandler guy whose game is a trending topic heading toward the PGA Championship. He was ninth at the British Open and fits the surprise winners/Chubby Slam profile.

16. Some things never change. Like Bruce Lietzke and practice. Before he pulled out of the Senior Open with a shoulder injury, he said "I haven't played a golf hole since April. The fishing has been good. I've been mowing my pastures in an air-conditioned tractor. It's been way too hot in Texas to be in anything other than an air-conditioned tractor, so I'm not going to act like I'm out there toughing it."

17. Center stage . . . for all the wrong reasons. When a WPRI reporter arrived late for the Ocean State Women's Golf Association championship match at Laurel Lane Golf Club, she asked players to "recreate" certain shots they had made. The broadcast described the putts as if they were the real ones winner Samantha Morell and runner-up Ali Prazak had hit when, in truth, they were staged. The reporter had taped the trophy presentations and maybe that and an interview would have sufficed. Instead, the station ran the recreated shots and had to issue a mea culpa. And, according to the Southern Rhode Island Newspapers, Morell said the staging, "felt kind of weird. We didn't know what to do. We tried to make it like the real thing, but I think we did a good job with our acting. I think we deserve some credit for it; that was really realistic." Just call it semi-fantasy golf.

18. And, finally, Stanford researchers at the University's Motion and Gait Analysis Lab have captured the perfect golf swing. No surprise since the lab pioneers -- back in the day -- also found a galloping horse had all four feet off the ground in mid-gait. The lab used all Stanford grads -- 10 pros including Notah Begay and five amateurs -- and had them swing a 5-iron at ping-pong balls. They wore shorts and those reflecting balls and eight cameras captured their every move as they swung with club speeds around 80 mph. The similarities between the pros? All initiated their downswing by rotating their hips; a 56 degree difference, on average, in the rotational position of the shoulders and hips; a 25 degree upward tilt of the leading shoulder and a 12 degree upward tilt of the leading hip. And while the lab also studies dance and a tai chi master, the lab was founded to study walking in children with disabilities.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM and can be reached at melaniehauser@gmail.com. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR. Follow her on Twitter @melaniehauser.