Has there ever been a stranger season on TOUR?

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Even the world's best golfer, Tiger Woods, has been inconsistent in one of the most perplexing seasons on TOUR.

I don't know what they have been putting in the water coolers on the PGA TOUR this season but it certainly has been a strange year.

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It started when someone spiked the usually dependable Steve Stricker's Powerade at The 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer and then things started to get really weird. Steve ballooned to a 77 on Sunday after shooting 61 and 62 on Friday and Saturday. Sure, this can happen on a windy day in the desert but it didn't seem likely. Particularly not to the normally steady Stricker.

Then Kenny Perry was accused of improving his lie in the playoff at the FBR Open. After all, what would you expect from a guy as inexperienced as Kenny? And it's not like anyone would have been watching at the best-attended golf tournament on the planet, is it? It's not like anyone was sitting in front of their TV a couple of hours before the Super Bowl kicked off, either. The final result was that everyone supported KP. The bizarre part about that whole scenario was the fact that the issue, which became a non-issue, wasn't raised until more than a month after the event.

The following week someone other than Tiger Woods won a golf tournament at Torrey Pines. That seems to only happen on years when Haley's Comet is visible. Of course, Tiger didn't play the Buick Invitational but that is almost beside the point. The rest of the West Coast seemed to be somewhat normal -- as normal as the West Coast can be, that is -- but then the TOUR moved east and things got weird again.

The Florida Swing has become as tough a stretch of golf as these guys face all year. So it seems logical when you get to a tournament where 8 under is going to win, you immediately think Y.E. Yang is the favorite. Heck, I bet you forgot he won The Honda Classic. Then Phil Mickelson won the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral and that was fine -- normal, even. But Michael Bradley became the second guy in a row to win in Puerto Rico with almost no gas left in the tank of his career. I am thrilled for Michael, who now has as many victories on the PGA TOUR as Chris DiMarco, but I don't think that even he could have seen this one coming.

Tiger came back to life at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and we needed it. "We" includes everyone except Sean O'Hair and his clan. For the second year in a row he stood on the 18th green and watched Tiger can a birdie putt to steal away into the night with Arnie's trophy. Not to worry, though -- O'Hair got his third TOUR win five weeks later at the Quail Hollow Championship.

Paul Casey's maiden TOUR victory at Houston and Angel Cabrera adding a Green Jacket to his wardrobe at Augusta National were not such strange developments that they caused us to scratch our heads. Don't worry, though, more is coming.

Brian Gay would see to that at the Verizon Heritage. Brian is a heck of a good player who went from journeyman to winner last year when we all had our backs turned watching the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. That win in Mexico gave Brian a lot of confidence. But no one, not even Brian's biggest fan, his wife Kimberly, could have predicted a 10-shot victory at Hilton Head. And all Brian has done since is blitz the field again in Memphis. Brian has won two tournaments by 15 shots this year. Top that, Tiger.

In between Brian's victories a guy named Henrik Stenson won THE PLAYERS Championship and he isn't even a member of the PGA TOUR anymore. But Tiger came back and won the Memorial Tournament and things seemed like they were going to be OK until we went to Long Island.

Two of the PGA TOUR's three national opens went to Monday due to weather and neither one of them were called the British Open. It rained so hard at Bethpage Black that Dan Jenkins started to gather the animals together two-by-two and put them on a boat. He had some experience with arks -- he covered the action when that other guy did it the first time. It says so right on the back of my Dan Jenkins bobblehead that I got at the U.S. Open, the 200th major championship he covered. If you think that Tom Watson nearly winning the British Open at the age of 59 is incredible then imagine covering 200 majors. The fact that you can live long enough to do that eating the food in the media center is so incredible that if Watson wins the 2015 Open it may not top it.

Tiger is playing this week at the Buick Open in Michigan and that is a good thing. There was certainly some question as to whether Tiger would be back when the whole Buick thing took a left turn. The fact that he comes to Flint, Mich., this week after missing just his fifth cut in 13 years -- and only his second in a major -- is strange indeed. But he has won three times this year and still has one more chance to edge closer to Jack Nicklaus before next year.

If you are foolish enough to wager your hard-earned money on golf then you have undoubtedly been beaten badly this year. The fun thing is that next year could be even stranger as most of the players on the PGA TOUR are going to have new wedges in the bag. That is like taking away a chef's measuring cups and spoons. You just don't know who can feel their way around and who will have to start from scratch.

Let's get through the rest of this year first, though, because someone is going to put a major on their resume and someone is going to win the FedExCup. In between there will undoubtedly be a lot more shenanigans from the best players in the world. Sooner as well as later.

John Maginnes is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.