ELEVEN FOR '11
$10 MIL BILL
Bill Haas played the Shot of the Year by getting up and down from a water hazard en route to winning the season-ending Tour Championship, then asked the Question of the Year—"Who won the FedEx Cup?"—before accepting the trophy and the $10 million bonus. You did, Bill.
FALSE ALARM
Tiger's back! We all thought so after Woods made an electrifying eagle at the 8th hole on Masters Sunday to tie for the lead. No he's not! Woods shockingly missed two short putts on the final nine and tied for fourth.
AUGUSTA CHRONICLE
Who would have predicted that soft-spoken South African Charl Schwartzel would be the one to birdie the final four holes—something no winner had ever done—to take the green jacket at a wildly entertaining Masters?
RORYING BACK
Rory McIlroy (above) rebounded brilliantly from a Masters meltdown—his Sunday 80 included a cabin-clanging tee shot—to win the U.S. Open in a runaway at Congressional. A new era begins? Maybe. A star is born? Definitely.
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
Five years removed from the death of his wife, Heather, from breast cancer and an emotional appearance in the first Ryder Cup in Ireland, teary 43-year-old Darren Clarke surprised the world by winning his first major, the British Open.
BELLY UP
The longer-shafted flat stick was transformed from red flag yip-reducer to the game's must-try new club when Keegan Bradley became the first player to win a major, the PGA, with his putter jammed into his navel.
COOL HAND
Who's No. 1? Luke Donald answered the question by knocking off then No. 1 Martin Kaymer in the Accenture Match Play final in February and Kaymer's successor, Lee Westwood, at the Euro tour's PGA Championship in May.
SPAIN MAN
After watching his World Ranking drop from second to outside the top 75 during an almost three-year victory drought, Sergio García won back-to-back starts in October in his native country.
QUEEN YANI
No tour does dominance better than the LPGA. Yani Tseng of Taiwan followed in the footsteps of recently retired world-beaters Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa by winning seven times, including a pair of majors.
MONEY MATTERS
When Webb Simpson moved to the top of the PGA Tour money list in October, Donald needed to finish first or second in the final event of the Fall Series to reclaim the lead. Remarkably, he won it with a 64 in the last round.
HURRICANE MEL
The U.S. withstood a late rally by the Internationals to retain the Presidents Cup, but the real winner was Royal Melbourne. A daunting setup and a wicked wind combined to make RM the butt-kickingest course in the world.
PHOTO
FRED VUICH