Quick 18: Fowler a winner, more belly putter converts

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

What break? Rickie Fowler will tee it up at the McGladrey Classic after his victory in Korea.

1. The most impressive thing about Rickie Fowler's win at the Kolon Korean Open? That, after a quick night's nap, he jumped on a plane to the States to play in this week's McGladrey Classic. The KKO wasn't a PGA TOUR win, but his struggles all season have come in the final rounds where he's been in contention. This time, he closed it out with a 68 and held off Y.E. Yang and Rory McIlroy in the process -- not to mention, educated the Korean gallery on the finer points of head-to-toe Oklahoma State orange. His signature #GOTIME just got more bite to it.

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2. At one point, you had to wonder if Bryce Molder and Briny Baird -- a combined 0-for-478-starts-without-a-win -- would still be playing Monday morning. It took Molder six playoff holes to break his 0-for-131 streak, win the Frys.com Open and extend Baird's to 348.

3. It's been a long road for Molder, the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech,who was a can't-miss coming out of college and finished third in his first professional event (2001 Reno-Tahoe Open). The four-time All-American was born with Poland's syndrome, a rare defect that left him without a left pectoral muscle and caused webbing between his thumb and forefinger and ring and third fingers of his left hand. Surgeries corrected the Poland's problem, but his left fingers are still shorter than those on his right hand. And, because of the missing muscle, he fought a hook until he was 14. Now, his only fight is up the money list to the top 30 (he's 45th).

4. Maybe it was the Patrick Cantlay factor. Maybe it was just because it was the Fall Series. Maybe it was because he can't seem to pick up where he left off at the Masters. Whatever the reason, Tiger Woods' T30 at the Frys.com Open didn't get many snaps. Yes, Cantlay, the UCLA sophomore, outplayed him in the opening round 69-73, but TW came back with three pretty good 68s. In Quick 18's humble opinion, progress is still progress. Never expected him to bounce back to his Fall 2009 form fast. Don't expect it fast now.

5. Quick 18 is still chuckling over Jeff Sluman embedding a pie in Brad Faxon's face after the latter won the rain-shortened Insperity Championship. Fun times with the fiftysomethings? You bet. But also remembering what Faxon said about TW: "When he gets where he's back in a little bit of a groove, I think he's got a real good chance to play great, and I've said it to everybody that's asked me, I said, yes, he can dominate again, yes, he can win again. Will he win four majors? I don't know. I know he wants to. But as soon as he makes playing great golf more important than making perfect golf swings or making a perfect putt, he'll be fine." Good stuff.

6. If you haven't been keeping an eye on Ernie Els, you better start. No, he didn't finish what he started at the Frys.com Open. But what Els is doing is fighting to get back in that world top-10 conversation. He'll turn 42 next week and is 44th in the Official World Golf Rankings, but hardly slowing down. He added the Wyndham Championship in August to play his way into the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Then, after playing in the Dunhill Links, he flew to California for the Frys.com Open where he got his first top -10 of the season. Plus, he had the quintessential quote on the belly putter: "As long as it's legal, I'll keep cheating like the rest of them."

7. Best player in the game right now? Quick 18 has to give the nod to Yani Tseng. Despite gaps in the LPGA schedule and lots of television-time challenged events, she's having a Tiger-Vijay-Annika kind of year. Tseng just won her sixth tournament of the year -- this one at the Hana Bank -- which means she has won five of the last 10 events she's played, including two majors. Yes, Annika had four seasons with more wins -- two with 8, one each with 10 and 11 -- but Tseng's not far behind. At, at 22, she's already gotten two-thirds of the points (18 of 27 points) she needs for the LPGA Hall of Fame.

8. One more good finish -- think a top 10 at the McGladrey Classic -- and Bud Cauley can skip q-shool and join Gary Hallberg, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Ryan Moore as players who earned enough to go straight from college to the PGA TOUR. Just one question. After watching Cauley's dad watch his son . . . who's enjoying this more? Bud or his Dad?

9. Steve Jobs. This isn't about his stay foolish, stay hungry tag line. It is about what jobs brought to the game. GPS coordinates on your phones. Rangefinder. Scoreboards. Golf apps. Weather radar in IPads all over PGA TOUR locker rooms and iPhones that video swings and keep players connected to their tweeps via Twitter. And since we're all about full disclosure, Quick 18 has a MacBook, but still goes mobile with a Blackberry.

10. A few Charl Schwartzel tidbits courtesy of Augusta Chronicle columnist Scott Michaux who spent time with the Masters champ in South Africa: 1) "It never interested me to play in America in the beginning," he said. "I was very happy with where I was. It was only a couple of years ago that I decided I wanted to start playing world golf." 2) Schwartzel plays both the PGA TOUR and European Tour and the travel is brutal.The shortest one-way flight from Johannesburg to any tournament he plays? Nine hours to Dubai. A trip to the UK is 11 hours, one to Perth is 10. Atlanta? A full 16. And it takes three days to adjust to U.S. time; six days when he returns. Whew. And we hear grumping about three hours to NYC or L.A.

11.The belly putter gets another convert -- well, tester -- in Joe Ogilvie, who tweeted from @ogilviej: Have decided to give the belly putter a try in my last tournament of the year at CMN Hospitals Classic @Disney. #capitulation

12. .Ogilvie's tweet had super putter Faxon chuckling and admitting that he has a broom-handled Scotty Cameron. He got it, well, just because ... And, while he still doesn't they should be legal, he does think it's the new norm. "I believe it's kind of like the two-handed backhand in tennis 25 years ago. It was the odd guy that hit a two-handed backhand. You see everybody else had the one-handed backhand and now if you don't have a two-handed backhand you can barely compete unless you're Roger Federer. Now I think the belly putter is going to be like the two-handed backhand. It's going to become accepted and you'll see more people use it."

13. Positive-negative. No player wants to see a rain-shortened event, but if it had to happen somewhere, drought-strickenTexas was a good place. The 12 hours of rain -- more than three inches in some areas -- in Greater Houston Sunday was the most rain that fallen since July 2, 2010. Some of that rain moved through San Antonio -- another drought area and host to this week's AT&T Championship -- on the way to Houston. Still, the area is more than 22 inches below normal rainfall.

14. In the rumor mill . . . .According to Sports Business Daily, the latest real estate transactions between Augusta National and residents along Berckman's Drive aren't about lengthening the fifth hole. Instead, Augusta has trademarked "Berckman's Place" and speculation is now that there will be a club within Augusta National and tickets to that hospitality area which will be in place for the 2013 event will be $6,000 each..

15. Seve, the movie? It is indeed already in the works. Stephen Evans, the Brit who produced "The Madness of King George" and T"he Wings of the Dove, " is looking for young Spanish actors to play the legendary Seve Ballesteros, who passed away last summer at the age of 54 from brain cancer. They'll use archived clips, the story will tell of Seve's blue-collar background and, it'll be in Spanish. It's a headshaker. How in the Quick 18 can you tell a story like Seve's with actors?

16. A new car is usually the norm for a hole-in-one on a specific par 3 at most professional events, but not at the Madrid Masters. When Elliott Saltman aced the third hole at El Encin, he won his weight in Iberico ham. That translates into 240 pounds of ham which is worth more than $10,000 "This is going to last me until next Christmas, never mind this one,"Saltman told Reuters. "I've been trying to lose some weight but I'm glad now I've not lost that much."

17. Chris Kirk figured some news was just too good not to share. @Chris_Kirk: It's a boy!!!

18. The shark warning at Carbrook Golf Club in Brisbane has nothing to do with Greg Norman. Six bull sharks were stranded during a flood in a lake near the 14th tee and they've started breeding. The sharks are eight to 10 feet long and are being fed by groundskeepers.

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.