Spencer Levin Displays The Long Putter's Versatility

I'm a little behind watching the telecast and just saw what happened to the Waste Management Open's third round leader as he played the par-5 15th Sunday.

Golf Gods Work Quickly Sometimes: Stanley Wins!

A week after collapsing at Torrey Pines, Kyle Stanley was the beneficiary of Spencer Levin's Sunday struggles. John Strege explains:

Levin's bid for a first PGA Tour victory was undone by the toxic mix of sand, water and jumping cholla.

It was no less painful to watch than Stanley's implosion in his own bid for victory No. 1 a week earlier, when he needed no worse than a seven at the 72nd hole to win the Farmers Insurance Open, made eight, and lost in a playoff.

"That's golf," Stanley said, attempting to explain the inexplicable.

The upshot was that the Waste Management Phoenix Open was a tournament lost instead of won, notwithstanding the six-under par 65 registered by its winner by default, Stanley, who might have clinched the 2012 PGA Tour comeback player of the year award. He overcame an eight-shot deficit in a single round only a week after his own devasting loss.

Levin graciously sat in the press center and took questions after the round.

Here are the highlights, in case you were distracted by Super Bowl pre-game entertainment Lenny Kravitz and The Fray...

"'You're going to put a what?'"

Adam Schupak with a fun flashback story of Deane Beman asking Gary McCord his thoughts on the future TPC Scottsdale site, home to the in-progress Waste Management Open.

"I remember I was at Phoenix Country Club," McCord said, "and I got a phone call from Deane Beman and he goes, 'Gary, I need a board member to go out and look at some land we're looking at.' So Ed Sneed and I go out and we're sitting on the burn out there where the driving range is for the East Golf Course and there's the Scottsdale Airport. There were a few buildings around a few hangars and nothing else. There's nothing. I turn and look at Pinnacle Peak. There's a few homes, I think Desert Highlands (Golf Club) had opened and then there's nothing. I look north and I don't see anything.  I turn to Ed and I said, 'What the hell is this?' He said, 'I don't know.'

Bubba On Buying Dukes Of Hazzard Car: It's About An American Cultural Institution!

Karen Crouse on Bubba Watson driving his Confederate-flag painted Dukes of Hazzard car purchase around Scottsdale.

The confederate flag painted on the roof was an issue for Watson’s wife, he said.

“I said it’s not about the confederate flag, it’s about the show and what it stands for,” he said.

And it stands for what again? Bad 80s television? Hayseeds in heat?

“It’s the most recognizable car. So years and years of persuading her, it didn’t help. Then finally we’ve never been to the Barrett-Jackson, because I’ve always played the Hope, now the Humana.

You know the Barrett-Jackson does conflict for me as well. That's always the weekend of my favorite rare wine auction in Paris. Anyway, go on...

"So I took it off this year. So a friend asked us to go and it was just sitting there.”

And the price was right.

“I wasn’t going to go much more money than that,” Watson said. “Because they were predicting a lot higher numbers, but for some reason it just fell in my lap.”