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merican players are on a roll in the early stages of the 2012 season. Veteran Steve Stricker captured the PGA’s season opener on Maui Island, Hawaii on Jan. 9. The American notched his 12th win on Tour with a decisive 3 stroke margin at the winner’s only Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Only winners of PGA Tour events from the prior year are invited to the season opener.

Golf wasn’t always so kind to Stricker. His game hit the doldrums in the late nineties and there was a time when he seriously considered leaving professional golf. Reflecting on this difficult time Steve shared a story relating to his daughter of 6 or 7 at the time. She entered a children’s tournament which she happened to win and said to her mother: “Does this mean we’re going to Hawaii?”

Needless to say her father’s game was far from achieving a victory at the time and an invitation to the season opener on Maui. Stricker persevered however, never gave up and is ranked a formidable fifth in the world today. For its second event of the year the Tour hopped across the Hawaiian Islands to the island of Oahu and the site of the Sony Open.

American Johnson Wagner was paid more attention for his moustache than his play during the four days of tournament play. He managed to hold off Swede Carl Pettersson by 2 strokes on Sunday and claim victory. After his victory he responded to a question about his recently grown moustache as follows: “I probably got [called] ‘Magnum P.I.’ in Maui a hundred times, and I had never really watched the show.  So I Googled images of Tom Selleck, and I took it as a compliment.”

Wagner was referring to the American television series Magnum P.I. and his likeness to the star of the show, Tom Selleck, who also sported a moustache. He went on to say: “But Tom Selleck is a stud so if I can look anything like him I’m very excited.”

The big man from North Carolina 191-cm-tall and 104 kg now has three wins on Tour. When asked if he had told anyone he was going to win early this season Wagner stated with confidence:  “Yeah, I did.  I told my wife that I was going to win early.  I told my parents and my brother and my trainer,” he then went on: “I’m kind of shy in a little shell, and for some reason just had way more energy and confidence going into this year.”

The PGA Tour next pitched tent on the US mainland and the desert of La Quinta, California, the site
of the Humana Challenge. In earlier round play the leader board shuffled between veteran Americans
Ben Crane, David Toms and Mark Wilson.

When the dust settled on Sunday, Wilson held of all challengers with his steely nerves to triumph over Johnson Wagner and his new found moustache.Wilson managed to edge Wagner by 2 slim strokes. Wilson who had won last year’s second event on Tour, The Sony Open only had to wait one event longer in 2012 to be crowned victor after the season’s third event. Wilson was asked about his superstitions when it comes to golf. He said: “Probably not superstitions more rituals I would say. I always start every round with two long tees, one short tee, and a quarter [US 25 cent coin] and a penny and a divot fixer in my pocket.”

Wilson’s rituals paid off handsomely in 2011 as well when he went on to win two of the season’s first five events. The Farmer’s Insurance Open and legendary Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego was the Tour’s next stop. Tiger Woods who usually starts his PGA season here opted to take a $3 million appearance fee to play in a European Tour event in Abu Dhabi instead.

The proceedings at Torrey Pines were more remarkable from the standpoint of who didn’t win rather than the eventual winner. Seeking his first win ever on Tour, 24-year-old American Kyle Stanley went into the final round with a solid 5 stroke lead. He then took a 7 stroke lead during the final Round. Stanley managed to maintain a 3 stroke lead going into the 18th and final hole.

In a meltdown reminiscent of Greg Norman at the ‘96 Masters Stanley inexplicably made a triple bogey 8 on the par 5 closing hole to allow countryman Brandt Snedeker into a playoff with him. Snedeker capitalized on his good fortune to defeat the demoralized Stanley just 2 holes later. Sendeker could only say the following about Stanley’s collapse: “You never want to see anybody go through that, I don’t care who it is — not even your worst enemy on the planet.”

Stanley garnered great sympathy from the four corners of the golf world for his demise. He then picked himself up and headed to Phoenix, Arizona for the Tour’s fifth event of the year, The Waste Management Open. In a miraculous turnaround akin to a Phoenix rising from the ashes Stanley became the last man standing in Arizona when he came from behind to win the event at 15 under par with the margin of a single stroke over Ben Crane.

When Stanley took the podium for the winner’s interview the first question he was asked was: “Now do see how easy it is to win?” To which a laughing and jubilant Stanley replied: “I don’t know how to answer that.” He went on to say: “I think the biggest challenge was seeing if I could put last week behind me. I think I did.”

With his classy comeback Stanley not only notched his first ever Tour triumph but capped off five straight American wins in as many events.