In 2014, 279 was good enough for a one-stroke victory at the Farmers Insurance Open for Scott Stallings. The script was rewritten for 2015 and 279 only bought a ticket to a four-man playoff.

For Stallings and Harris English, the extra-hole journey ended early, as each could only par the 18^th hole, while J.B. Holmes and Jason Day made birdie. On the second extra hole, Day was able to scratch out a par and defeat the resurgent Holmes, who entered the final round in a first-place tie with English.

Day was one of five golfers to tie for second in 2014, behind Stallings, so this victory had to serve as a delightful vindication of his oh-so-close last year. The Sunday surprise came from Jimmy Walker, who made five bogeys on the day and fell from third to seventh. Walker has been nearly unbeatable and has put himself in position to win three times in 2015.

Winning WITB: Click here to see the clubs Day used to win at Torrey Pines. 

Story of the Week

We skipped it last week, but before the weekend, Tiger had once again become the talk of the town. Whether he is in denial about his physical condition or is one star-crossed golfer, the once-invincible Woods was forced to withdraw from the Torrey Pines course that has been so good to him after a pithy 11 holes on Thursday. The sport’s greatest mystery is what, when, where and how will we next see from Woods?

Next Up: AT&T National Pebble Beach Pro-Am (February 12-15)

Words To Live By

“It’s just my glutes are shutting off. Then they don’t activate and then, hence, it goes into my lower back. So, I tried to activate my glutes as best I could, in between, but it just they never stayed activated.”

— Tiger Woods

LPGA Tour: Young Wins The Day In Bahamas

Sei Young Kim, a 2014 LPGA qualifying school graduate, earned a master’s degree in clutch on Sunday with a playoff victory at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic over other wunderkinds Ariya Jutanargan and Sun Young Yoo. Sei Young birdied the first playoff hole, reaching the par 5 in two and two-putting. In 2014, Sei Young won three times on the Korean LPGA tour, including one major championship, the LPGA of Korea.

The Pure Silk was her first LPGA Tour victory and inches her a step closer to her principal goal: making the Korean team for the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

Story of the Week

Youth. Four of the top six finishers had not won before the Pure Silk. Inbee Park, the third round leader, needed anything under 70 to win, but could only muster a 72. Brittany Lincicome posted 68s in the first and third rounds and needed one more for a victory, but fell two strokes shy.

Next Up: ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open (February 19-22)

Words To Live By:

“KLPGA five times, so this is the sixth time in a playoff. Besides one, I’ve won all of them.”

— Sei Young Kim

European Tour: Burned Cheeseburger Gets Burned

Bernd Wiesberger, the Austrian golfer known as “Burned Cheeseburger” among the tour caddies, chunked an approach into the water on No. 7 to derail his ride to victory. Instead, recent tour qualifier Anirban Lahiri of India snuck past the two-time tour winner to claim his first European Tour title, the Maybank Malaysian Open at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club.

Wiesberger had one hand on the champion’s trophy after a Saturday 63, but Lahiri was lurking, courtesy of a third-round 62, the only score to eclipse Wiesberger that day.

Sunday revealed a different golf course, one with a bit more gusto and challenge for the leaders. While 66 was the low round of the day, under-par scores were not to be found on the cards of the contenders.

Only Lahiri and Gregory Bhourdy (T5) among the top eight were able to shoot below 71. Alejandro Cañizates, two back of Wiesberger entering the final 18, also had a rough go of it as he bogeyed five of his first 11 to finish three back.

Story of the Week

Wiesberger or Lahiri? Take your pick. Wiesberger hasn’t won since 2013 and seems more comfortable fighting back to just miss winning than taking the lead to just miss winning. With a one-shot lead at the penultimate hole, Wiesberger made bogey where the eventual champion had made birdie moments earlier. Lahiri made twice as many birdies as Wiesberger (6 to 3) on day four, just enough to offset his miscues. He also moved into the

Up Next: True Thailand Classic (February 12-15)

Words To Live By

“I think I’ve got a bad habit of making it hard for myself, but I’m happy I got over the line, as ugly as it was towards the end.”

— Anirban Lahiri

“It hasn’t quite finished the way I intended to. After the hiccup on five, I didn’t hit it anywhere near as well as the last 15 rounds. It’s tough to say, but it is what it is and unfortunately I beat myself out of it today.”

— Bernd Wiesberger

Web.Com Tour: El barrio del Señor Rodgers

Patrick Rodgers has been pegged as a contender since he made the U.S. Walker Cup side fresh out of high school in 2011. Although the former Stanford golfer experienced some success on the PGA Tour in 2014, he needed a trip to the Web.Com tour to remember how to win.

The Bogotá Country Club and the Colombia Championship proved to be just the neighborhood he needed, as the youngster went par-birdie in extra holes to defeat four-time PGA Tour runner-up Steve Marino after the pair tied for first at 17-under. Marino entered Sunday with a two-stroke advantage on the field, but stumbled with two bogeys in his first seven holes. Although he shot 69 on the day, Rodgers’ weekend of 66-65 would not allow Marino to escape with a win.

Story of the Week

The weather. Eventual winner Patrick Rodgers noted that the course changed from fast and firm to wet and receptive by weekend’s end. Three days of intermittent showers (Friday through Sunday) turned the 2015 event into a dart-throwing contest. The rains forced the tournament organizers to complete Round 3 on Sunday, then send the golfers back out without repairing for round four. Play was suspended on Friday at 1:22 p.m., then cancelled just after 5 p.m. On Saturday, golfers endured a two-hour delay.

Up Next: Karibana Championship (March 5-8)

Words To Live By

“Yeah, it was a unique experience to be called off the course with three, three holes to go, kind of in the most intense moment of my career definitely professionally, and you know, to have all the time to think about it, and then to come out and birdie two of the last three, it’s something I’m definitely proud of.”

— Patrick Rodgers

Champions Tour: Sunshine On My Shoulders Makes For Victory

The formerly-dour Paul Goydos, known ironically as “Sunshine” by his PGA Tour cohorts, held off the hard-charging Gene Sauers at the Allianz Championshipfor a one-stroke triumph in the first, full-field event on the 2015 Champions Tour.

Goydos, Tom Pernice, Jr., Bart Bryant and Rod Spittle began the day at 9-under, but were quickly caught when José Coceres stitched together a nearly-immaculate 63 to reach the same score. The Argentine was 10-under with two to play, but an 11th-hour bogey erased any chance of a South American triumph. In the end, it was Goydos making birdie on the last with a nifty, bumped lob wedge to six inches.

Up Next: ACE Group Classic (February 13-15)

Story of the Week

Doctor Dirt’s double eagle. Not quite. Bart Bryant’s older brother and fellow professional, Brad Bryant, was known as “Dr. Dirt” during his PGA Tour days. Bart was unadorned with a colorful nickname, but that might change. On Saturday, Bryant knocked an iron into the 18^th hole from 189 yards out for a double eagle, bringing him from three strokes in arrears to the top spot. Two bogeys and a double kept Bryant from contending on Sunday, but he might have left Boca Raton with a new nickname: Double Dirt.

Words To Live By

“I watched a guy chip in the lake, leave it, roll it back in the lake. You get no rhythm in our group. The next hole hit a bad layup and then we had to wave him up. It was just one of those things, we had no — our last group I don’t think had any rhythm. It was just herky jerky I guess is the way I would put it… you would have thought it was the Broken Arrow net best ball tournament, the first hole.”

— Paul Goydos

R.I.P. Charlie Sifford and Billy Casper 

Charles Luther Sifford lived 92 years on this earth. He struggled against prejudice and the banishment by the PGA Tour of all golfers not deemed “white” in the 1940s and 1950s. Even when he arrived on tour as an official member, he was greeted with demonstrations of bigotry and ignorance. Sifford soldiered on, winning twice on the PGA Tour and multiple times on the Senior Tour. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014.

William Earl Casper lived 83 years on this earth. In addition to eating Buffalo meat to counteract dietary problems, Casper won three major championships and drove a dagger through the heart of the great charger himself, Arnold Palmer. Seven strokes out of the lead with nine to play in the 1966 U.S. Open, Casper played the final nine in 32 strokes, scared Palmer into a 39, then won the 18-hole playoff the next day.

Arnie was never Arnie again. No one could putt a golf ball like Billy Casper.

“Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better be ready at 9:20. Because that’s when I’m going to be out there on the first tee.”

— Charlie Sifford, to an anonymous caller who issued a death threat to him in 1961

“The next morning Mr. Hogan called me over. He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. Then he whispered: ‘Billy, tell me. How do you putt?’”

— Billy Casper