Brandt Snedeker wins, Phil Mickelson falls at 2013 Pebble Beach Pro-Am

After several close calls, Brandt Snedeker closes out a win in 2013 and continues his climb up the world rankings. Elsewhere around the world: 15-year old Lydia Ko is the next golf prodigy, Rocco debuts with a win and Richard Sterne goes wire-to-wire.

No. 1 - World’s best -- While Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and Luke Donald remain ahead of him in the Official World Golf Rankings, Brandt Snedeker is playing better golf than anyone on the planet. After consecutive second-place finishes behind Tiger and Phil, he ran away from the field on Sunday at Pebble Beach to pick up his first win of the season.

No one has played better golf since last August, with Snedeker finishing inside the top-10 in eight of his last nine starts. He’s long been considered one of the best putters in the world, an asset that will always keep him in contention, but his tee-to-green game has improved dramatically. On Sunday, he put that all together to secure another $1 million-plus payday.

Since last fall’s $10 million FedExCup win, Snedeker has kept things rolling into this season with five impressive performances to start the year. But he still needed to close out a win on Sunday, and it was with the perfect match of driving, wedge game and putting that he took the lead on the vulnerable first seven holes at Pebble.

He was already going to be on a list of favorites at Augusta, where he first made headlines with a run at the 2008 green jacket. But his start in January and then this win at Pebble put him among a select group of four to five golfers who will be the top choices of the oddsmakers at The Masters. While his game may be in the best form, Snedeker understands that the next step is winning one of the big ones (via Golf Digest):

”Finishing a tournament like this off with the lead gives me a ton of confidence going into the Masters, the U.S. Open, all the great venues we have. That’s next on the list. I’ve won five times out here now. The important thing now is to win majors.

No. 2 - Ko sets another record -- The 15-year old New Zealand native set another mark on Sunday, becoming the youngest player ever to win a Ladies European Tour event. The win is the third victory of her professional career, and comes less than a year after she became the youngest player ever to win an LPGA Tour event (2012 Canadian Open). Ko burst onto the scene in the United States last August when she won the Women’s Amateur at The Country Club in Ohio. The victory in Canada followed just a couple short weeks later, and all of a sudden the next great golfing prodigy had a name.

Ko’s profile was obviously much higher in her native New Zealand, where she picked up the win on Sunday. Her name first surfaced on the global golf stage when she captured the New South Wales Open at the age of 14, becoming the youngest player ever, male or female, to win a pro event.

It’s been an amazing two-year stretch for Ko, who started the weekend with an invitation to the Kraft Nabisco Championship. The sponsor’s exemption provides her an opportunity to become the youngest ever to win a major, a feat that doesn’t seem all that out-of-reach after her steady one-shot win on Sunday.

No. 3 - Rocco debuts with a win -- Less than a month ago, it was Tiger Woods who made his debut with a win at Torrey Pines, site of his historic 2008 U.S. Open battle with Rocco Mediate. On Sunday, it was Mediate’s turn to debut with a victory as he made his first Champions Tour appearance at the Allianz Championship.

Mediate started Sunday in Boca Raton with a three-shot lead and closed out his first win at the senior level with a two-shot margin over Champions Tour stalwarts Bernhard Langer and Tom Pernice, Jr. Mediate is the 16th player to win in his debut on the Champions Tour, with the fresh, young 50-year-olds often having a distinct advantage over some of their older colleagues. Mediate is a well-known personality among the gallery, and joins Fred Couples as a draw to add some more depth on the senior tour.

No. 4 - Another wire-to-wire win -- The golf world witnessed a wire-to-wire win for the second week in a row on Sunday. It was Phil Mickelson who ran away at TPC Scottsdale last week, and Richard Sterne matched that dominance at the Joburg Open this week.

Sterne is a world-class player with six European Tour titles to his name, but he had not picked up a victory in more than four years after dealing with several injuries. It was never close on Sunday, as Sterne cruised to a bogey-free round of 64 to win by seven shots. While the field wasn’t as deep as Scottsdale, there were still several top players, such as Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace, in attendance and dominating any pro event in that fashion is impressive.

Sterne was coming off a solid showing at the Dubai Desert Classic, and he said afterward he felt totally comfortable coming into the week in his home country. “It’s quite tough coming from a good week into another week but you do expect to play well.” He averaged close to 66 during the past two weeks on Tour, and the win earns him a berth in the WGC-Accenture Match Play championship in two weeks. He’ll be a low seed, but with the hot hand, he could be a good pick to upset one of the top seeds in the field.

No. 5 - Phil’s new driver -- After his win last week, Mickelson indicated that his first two lackluster starts were the anomaly -- that he had been playing great golf, and that reemerged in Scottsdale. But Mickelson, who was a favorite to repeat at Pebble Beach, finished near the bottom of the leaderboard on Sunday, making the cut right on the number after carding an eight on the 18th hole on Saturday.

Phil credited much of his success last week at TPC Scottsdale to a new driver from Callaway that he put in his bag just two days before shooting 60 in his opening round. Mickelson’s quotes about the driver being a “dream” were about as positive of an unofficial advertisement that an equipment company could get. Unsurprisingly, Callaway turned around those quotes and packaged them into a new commercial (it doesn’t quite rise to the creativity levels of Nike’s new Tiger ad):

Of course, Mickelson said the biggest advantage of the new driver was that it limited his misses left off the tee -- a recurring problem. That eight he carded on Saturday at 18 was in large part due to two balls rocketed into the water down the left side of the fairway, which he did again on Sunday on his way to a 7 at Pebble’s famous finishing hole. While that ad ran all weekend, the most memorable moment involving Mickelson was the lowlight of his misstep searching for the ball the rocks at 18:

No. 6 - Bill Murray’s Saturday show -- The PGA Tour ensures that the biggest names in the field, both pros and amateurs, rotate to Pebble Beach on Saturday for coverage on CBS. Golf Channel’s coverage on the first two days is limited to the host course, while the top pros play on Spyglass Hill and MPCC. So as the weekend hit, it was Bill Murray’s turn to once again claim the CBS spotlight at Pebble. On Thursday, I noted that Murray would not have to do much given his facial hair status entering the week, but he obliged on Saturday to create several amusing gifs:

via Bill Hanstock

via Bill Hanstock

via Brian Floyd

Unfortunately, Murray and D.A. Points, who swept both titles in 2011, missed the cut and were off the stage on Sunday. Snedeker and his partner, business exec Toby S. Wilt tied with Michael Letzig and John Erickson for the pro-am title at 31-under. Dallas duo of Jordan Spieth and Tony Romo came close, but had to settle for a T2.

No. 7 - No match play for Mickelson -- Phil is notorious for picking up wins in the early portion of the season, particularly on the West Coast swing. But once again, he’ll abstain from playing in the WGC-Accenture Match Play in Arizona in two weeks. That’s likely where we’ll see Tiger resurface next, but Mickelson indicated that he’ll spend time with his kids, who are on break that week. It’s rare to have such a high-profile player skip WGC events, but Mickelson typically has no qualms about skipping the match play. He’s missed it in three of the past four seasons, but it will still be a big hole in the bracket, given that he’s the second-most popular American golfer in the world.

No. 8 - Singh plays through controversy -- There were plenty of comments about Vijay Singh’s eligibility this week, with players and golf commentators calling for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem to suspend the veteran for admitted use of deer antler spray. But after a meeting with Finchem earlier in the week, Singh continued to play amidst the drama and steadily made the cut to play on Sunday at Pebble.

The bigger issue for Singh, however, may be his long-term status and eligibility on the Champions Tour. Singh turns 50 later this month, making him eligible for the senior circuit. But Champions Tour officials and decision-makers told Rex Hoggard of GolfChannel.com that Singh may be facing a one-year suspension at that level due to the banned substances admission. That would be a heavy punishment for a player who, like Mediate this week, would undoubtedly pick up some winner’s checks this year if he played there.

No. 9 - USGA changes up -- The execs at the USGA have found a home for important announcements on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive. Shortly after announcing on the show that Winged Foot would get the 2020 U.S. Open, Tom O’Toole visited the show on Monday morning to announce a change in their championship slate.

For the first time since 1995, the USGA has added events to their rota of national championships, instituting the men’s and women’s amateur four-ball championships in 2015. Those two new titles will replace the men’s and women’s Amateur Public Links titles, which will end in 2014. It’s a fairly drastic alteration for an organization that rarely changes its schedule, but the four-ball games are definitely a cool new wrinkle.