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It's been a while since Fred Couples has hoisted a PGA TOUR trophy, but he made a serious play for the win Sunday in L.A. before losing his chance with an errant approach shot on the final hole.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: It seemed only fitting that on a day in which the game's second-biggest superstar announced his return to golf with a 63, the planet's biggest superstar would make everyone forget about it a few hours later by announcing his own return. No one ever accused Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods of not being entertaining, that's for sure. And their game of oneupsmanship could reach a whole new level this week in Arizona, thanks not only in part to Mickelson's victory this past week, but by the most famous knee this side of Nancy Kerrigan.

To understand the absurd level Woods has taken the game to, we need to rewind a little bit. When the news broke that Woods would return this week from the knee surgery that kept him sidelined these last eight months, Tucson quickly turned into the center of the universe.

Over 500 media credentials representing more than 180 organizations were issued by Saturday night alone. Among them were the usual outlets, such as ESPN and all the major newspapers, but so were NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNN and a host of international publications or networks.

But perhaps the best way to sum up his transcendent impact is with two words: Hello, golf. -- Brian Wacker

ONLY IN HOLLYWOOD: It may be Hollywood, but nothing went according to script on Sunday. Well, almost nothing. With a four-shot lead, it looked as though the defending champion was going to walk away with the tournament again. But after a making eagle at the first for the third consecutive day, the Phil Mickelson Show went dark for 13 holes. Technical difficulty left Mickelson looking up at other names on the leaderboard as he made five bogeys and no birdies in that stretch.

Then it looked like we were going to get a rerun of the Boom Boom Variety Show that was so popular in the early '90s. It seems that if Hollywood really was writing the script for this year's tournament, they would have had Freddy hoisting the trophy as the credits rolled. An alternate ending would have been two-time Comeback Player of the Year Steve Stricker winning. After the Sunday collapse at the 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer, the Northern Trust Open title would have been sweet revenge.

In the end, however, it was the Phil Show after all, but not until after he called his swing doctor earlier in the weekend. The birdies at 16 and 17 were just enough for Lefty, who won for the first time since Tiger's exodus. In case you hadn't heard, that Tiger guy is coming back this week. -- John Maginnes

STICKING WITH STRICKER: Those top four seeds at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship look pretty darn good, don't they? You can take a chance on arguably the greatest player in the game competing after an eight-month layoff, the Irishman who has won the last two majors, the ebullient Spaniard or the enigmatic man from Fiji.

All are great choices. What about someone flying a little under the radar, though? In that case, think Ben Hogan bracket fifth seed Steve Stricker. He's ninth in the FedExCup and seventh on the money list after a solo second and tie for third in four starts this year. Granted, he squandered the lead at Palm Springs, but it was just one bad hole at the wrong time.

Stricker won the 2001 Accenture Match Play Championship and is a Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup veteran. The big-hitting Dustin Johnson is a formidable first-round opponent, but wouldn't it be fun to see Stricker and Phil Mickelson, who beat him at the Northern Trust Open, meet in the quarterfinals? -- Helen Ross

McALLISTER'S BRACKETOLOGY: In doing some research on Australian Brendan Jones, who is Tiger Woods' first-round opponent this week at the Accenture Match Play Championship, the thought occurred to me: What if the 64 players in the field were selected by committee, a la NCAA Tournament style, as opposed to relying solely on the Official World Golf Ranking?

No offense to Jones, who has enjoyed a fruitful career on the Japan Tour, but if you were selecting 64 players to make up your dream Match Play bracket, would he make the cut? For one, big-hitting J.B. Holmes comes to mind as a possible alternative. He won last year on the PGA TOUR and was on the winning U.S. Ryder Cup team, while Jones didn't win in Japan. Yet Holmes -- who pushed Woods to the limit in their battle in the Match Play in 2008 -- won't be in Tucson this week.

And what about Bernhard Langer, who is chewing up the Champions Tour and obviously still has lots of game? Or Brendon de Jonge, last year's Nationwide Tour Player of the Year who just posted a top 10 finish at Riviera? Or U.S. Amateur champ Danny Lee, who, at the age of 18, just became the youngest player to win on the European Tour?

If the field were chosen by committee, then factors such as FedExCup points and Race to Dubai order could be considered. Plus, golf could have its own Selection Sunday show, brackets could be immediately analyzed and criticized, and some really unique matchups might be manipulated and created.

I'm sure there are plenty of issues against a selection process, and maybe the logistics would be too difficult to figure out. But if college basketball can have its March Madness, why can't golf have its February Frenzy? -- Mike McAllister

Stock up

Steve Stricker: It looks like some downtime did Stricker some good. He got away from the game for a couple weeks, beating balls in the Wisconsin cold out of a custom-made trailer and did everything but win to erase a painful final-round collapse earlier this year at the 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer. K.J. Choi: As someone said to me last week, every course the PGA TOUR plays suits Choi's game. Its just amazing a guy this good off the tee, into the green and on the putting surface hasn't won more, because every time you turn around, his name is near the top of the leaderboard. It was again Sunday in L.A., where he tied for third. Chris DiMarco: The three-time PGA TOUR winner hasn't won since 2002 and has been in a steady decline since '06, but he showed signs of life with three very good rounds at Riviera. Injuries have plagued him a little, but it really wasnt that long ago that DiMarco was nipping at Tiger Woods' heels in the British Open and the Masters.

Stock down

Rory Sabbatini: I was torn on which category to put Sabbo in. On one hand, he keeps knocking on the proverbial door with two T12s and a T6. On the other hand, a couple of loose swings resulted in a double bogey and a bogey on two of his last three holes Sunday and knocked him from contention. The latter lands him here. Vijay Singh: Two tournaments since returning from knee surgery, two missed cuts. That's the harsh reality for Singh, who turned 46 on Sunday. Life on the other side of 40 has been good to him, except when you're talking about coming back from surgery. This could be something that plagues the FedExCup champion all year. Steve Marino: The runner-up at last year's Mayakoba Golf Classic started out the year so promising with a T7 at the Sony Open in Hawaii and a T25 at the 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer. Since then, however, he's missed three straight cuts, broken 70 just once and has an average score of 73.

A Quick 18

Front Nine Back Nine Rather than skip the Northern Trust Open because it might not fit his schedule in a particular year, Phil Mickelson a few years ago decided to simply commute via airplane from his home in Rancho Sante Fe to L.A. Its only 100 miles and, so far, appears to be working. Mickelson has two wins and a runner-up the last three years. To Johnson's credit, he handled the situation with complete class -- though he could have burned a hole through the earth with his eyes while it was explained that he could have saved a stroke had he called an official before hitting the shot. Johnson willingly shouldered the responsibility, even though he missed the cut by three. Fred Couples' fanned 7-iron on the 72nd hole pretty much eliminated any chance he had of winning a third career title at Riviera, but his problems started long before the closing hole. Couples missed five putts from inside 15 feet on Sunday, including one from 3 feet to save par on No. 4 and another from 6 feet to save par on No. 12. Ryo Ishikawa, the 17-year-old Japanese phenom, might have missed the cut at the Northern Trust Open, but it's no wonder given the literally hundreds of Japanese media that were on hand just to follow him. He didnt seem to be bothered by it, though. Ishikawa happily met with the media all week and signed plenty of autographs. Speaking of Couples, this will be a tough way to go out. He'll be back on the PGA TOUR at some point, but said he plans to take the next month off. After what happened Sunday, you wonder if it could be longer. He turns 50 in October, and he's rarely had a chance to win the past few years. This one stings, too. The Masters might be the one tournament players covet more than any other, at least most of them, especially Ishikawa. He said that's his ultimate goal -- to win the Masters. I hope he does someday just so we can see what those bright yellow pants of his look like with a Green Jacket. Steve Stricker has nothing to be ashamed of after starting his day seven strokes off the lead and ending it with a final-round 67, even if he did bogey the last hole. Nonetheless, he keeps picking himself back up. "I'm happy that I'm putting myself in those positions," he said. "But I'm also disappointed I haven't won one of them or maybe both of them." Pretty impressive victory by U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee, 18, at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth, Australia over the weekend. He's the first amateur to win on the Australasian PGA Tour since Brett Rumford in 1999 and the first amateur winner of a European Tour event since Pablo Martin in 2007. Last week, Mark Calcavecchia brought two putters with him to Pebble Beach. He didn't use either of them, however, instead opting for one he just grabbed out of the PING bag that week. "Whatever I grabbed, that's what I was going to use," he said. It's been in the bag ever since, and why not after a T4 and a T6 the last two weeks? In a very short time, Dustin Johnson has earned his way into the top events on TOUR, and he's already sitting eighth in the Presidents Cup standings. The kid might get a lot of match play experience this year. Calcavecchia also had some thoughts and advice on dealing with L.A. traffic. "Takes an hour to go two miles; I don't get it," he said. "I'd have to have a helicopter if I lived out here, like the Jetsons or something. We need something to just get like 20 feet off the ground." Hey Mark, any advice on how to deal with the foot traffic that will be following Tiger this week? A decision regarding Mercedes-Benz's future involvement with the Mercedes-Benz Championship at Kapalua should be coming soon. Mercedes has one more year on its contract. Interestingly, Mercedes-Benz just completed the first of a two-year agreement as the official car sponsor of the Northern Trust Open. While Tiger Woods has made a living out of winning multiple titles at the same tournament, so have others, like Phil Mickelson. With his victory on Sunday, it was the 12th time in his career that Mickelson has won a tournament multiple times. It looks like golf is wisely tapping into the Asia-Pacific talent pool with the announcement last week that the R&A, Masters and Asia Pacific Golf Confederation are joining to create the Asian Amateur Championship. The winner earns a spot in the following year's Masters, and the top two finishers will be exempt into international final qualifying for the British Open. How tough was the kikuyu grass at Riviera? Just ask Tommy Armour III, who had trouble getting his ball to stay on the eighth green on Saturday. It had as much to do with the rough he was hitting out of as the short-sided green he was trying to hit onto. Five swings and one putt later, he completed a snowman on the eighth green. Here's an idea for next year's slam-dunk contest: Have Tiger Woods hit a golf ball to Nate Robinson, and as he's dunking the basketball, he can catch Tiger's alley-oop and dunk that, too. OK, bad idea for so many reasons. Seriously though, the PGA TOUR could use an All-Star weekend that's as fun as the NBA's. Tough break for Vincent Johnson on No. 5 on Friday. Johnson, in the field as the recipient of the Charlie Sifford exemption, got a two-stroke penalty for playing a shot after his ball had moved from its original position. Semi-buried in the rough, he wasn't sure if it had and rather than calling a rules official, he played it. Live and learn. Speaking of contests, in case you missed it, "Slumdog Millionaire" won the Oscar for best picture Sunday night, while Sean Penn won best actor for his role in "Milk" and Kate Winslet won best actress for her role in "The Reader." Sadly, I haven't seen any of these. Which was your favorite?

The Forward Spin

It's not March, but the madness for golf fans is here -- the madness of trying to fill out your bracket for the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, that is. In some circles, picking every game of the NCAA men's basketball tournament can land you a million bucks. If you can correctly pick every match of this tournament, you should be given your own stimulus package. It's the only tournament where a 16 seed beating a 1 seed isn't really that big an upset. Just ask Tiger Woods, who fell in the first round to Australian Peter O'Malley -- the last man in the field -- in 2002. In fact, three of Woods' six losses in the event have come at the hands of players from Down Under -- the other two to Nick O'Hern in 2002 and 2005. Woods' first-round opponent this year? Yep, Aussie Brendan Jones.

PGATOUR.COM'S Brian Wacker wrote Stock Up and Stock Down, A Quick 18 and Forward Spin.