PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- The new Tiger Woods may not be an exact replica of the old Tiger Woods, but it's a facsimile that may well prove dangerous when winter turns to spring, if not sooner. Coming into the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Woods struggled on Sunday in Abu Dhabi and the naysayers were quick to bury him in the desert sand. Woods, however, saw it differently.

"I feel that my last four events have been very positive, three stroke play and one team event," he said. "Everything is kind of headed in the right direction, so I'm very excited about it."

Woods' first round in America this year, a 68 on becalmed Spyglass Hill GC, wasn't a thing of beauty but it was yet another sign the former World No. 1 is regaining his equilibrium. Woods hit 12 of 14 fairways on what is probably the most difficult driving course of the three AT&T venues -- Spyglass, Pebble Beach Golf Links and Monterey Peninsula GC. Where the old Tiger was prone to the occasional tee shot that exited the planet, stage right, the current miss seems to be more of a dead-straight pull to the left. It's not a thing of beauty, but it's eminently playable.

More importantly, the explosiveness has returned, something that was evident when he birdied three of Spyglass' four par fives. "I have the speed when I want it now," said Woods after Thursday's four-under-par round. "That's something I've been missing for a few years. I think what it is, I feel very comfortable because my practice sessions are so much better. I'm able to practice for a very long time and that's where I derive a lot of my confidence."

Rumors that Tiger Woods might need a GPS to find the Pebble Beach Golf Links proved largely unfounded. When Woods elected to begin his 2012 season, American-style, at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am it was the first time he'd played on the Monterey Peninsula in a non-major championship in 10 years. Despite having won a U.S. Open there in a turn of the century performance the likes of which neither man nor beast had ever seen before was immaterial to the perennial No. 1 player in the world who isn't anymore. The reasoning all those years was the poa annua greens were too bumpy and the thrashing about of the amateurs made the rounds painfully slow. So, Woods went elsewhere.

Related: Tracking Tiger at Pebble through the years

When he came back for his first February visit in a decade, the biggest piece of news he brought with him was his disdain for the belly putter and the conversations he's had with the R&A's Peter Dawson about it. "I've never been a fan of it. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to that. I've talked to Peter about this," said Woods, "and gone back and forth over how we could word it. My idea was to have it so that the putter would be equal to or less than the shortest club in your bag. And I think with that we'd be able to get away from any type of belly anchoring. You can still anchor the putter like Bernhard Langer did against the forearm. I think you can get away from the belly or the long putter by that type of wording. (Whether) you actually measure everybody's sand wedge and putter before you go out and play, that's another thing."

Photo by Getty Images

In all other respects, Woods seemed very much like a man who remains on the mend. Rather than being discouraged by his final round 72 in Abu Dhabi, he put it down as part of the process.

The Father-Son Challenge, the made-for-television event last held in 2008, appears poised to make a comeback in December -- but with a potentially expanded format -- Golf World has learned.

Alastair Johnston, vice chairman of IMG Worldwide, confirmed that a deal is being sought to bring back a competition that was popular among the participants. The tournament of 18 two-man teams is restricted to fathers who have won at least one major championship and their amateur progeny.

"We're confident that we can get [a contract] done," Johnston said.

In addition to the professional competition, an accompanying amateur competition is being added and contested simultaneously. Teams would be determined via an undetermined number of regional qualifiers in the U.S.

Selection of a host golf course has yet to be finalized. A television source said NBC Sports, which owns the event jointly with IMG, is scheduled to broadcast the 36-hole event live the third weekend in December.

PHOTO GALLERY: Celebrating golf dads

Larry and Drew Nelson won the 2008 edition sponsored by Del Webb and held at ChampionsGate Resort near Orlando. The Nelsons, in fact, won three of the last five, while Bernhard Langer and his son, Stefan, won in 2005-06.

--Dave Shedloski
Follow @DaveShedloski

(Photo by Getty Images)

After failing to reach the top tier of the putting surface from only 116 yards on the third hole of last week's Waste Management Phoenix Open, J.B. Holmes threw his club.

It was a sign of great frustration, obviously, and who could blame the guy? Here, after all, was the kind of vulnerable par 5 the long-hitting Holmes, a two-time winner of this tournament, usually tames with little difficulty. Now he'd have to struggle to make par, which he didn't.

Yet the reaction was also a sign of great encouragement -- a sign that Holmes, five months after brain surgery to repair defects in his cerebellum, is inching his way back toward normal. Forget all the talk about the surgery lending him a new perspective on life. Holmes gets all that. He also gets that he is a professional, a proud one at that, which means he is focused on returning to the player he was before, and as quickly as possible.

"It's no fun playing bad," said Holmes, 29, who tied for 45th in his first 72-hole finish since last July. "I'm not hitting the shots I normally hit."

For a second straight week, a golfer collapsed down the stretch of a PGA Tour event. Amazingly, last week's victim was this week's benefactor.

Kyle Stanley started the final round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open trailing by eight shots, but a 66 combined with 54-hole leader Spencer Levin's 75 added up to his first tour win. More importantly for the rising star, it washed the bad taste out of his mouth from a final-hole meltdown at Torrey Pines the week before. Here are the highlights from this remarkable turnaround:

Related: Golf's all-time biggest bouncebacks

Now it's Spencer Levin who is left winless after two close calls (He also lost in a playoff at the Mayakoba Classic last year). Getting over blowing a seven-shot lead on a Sunday will be hard, but as we saw yesterday, it doesn't have to take long.

-- Alex Myers
Follow @AlexMyers3

You've got to hand it to Kyle Stanley, and Spencer Levin benevolently did so on Sunday, reiterating vividly what Stanley had recognized only a week before: Golf can be a pain in the...

Well, just note that those were chunks of cactus that caddie Mike Hicks was plucking from Levin's backside adjacent to the 15th fairway at TPC Scottsdale. 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.

(Related: Golf's Biggest Bouncebacks)

Levin, 27 and ostensibly on the cusp of stardom, had a seven-stroke lead at one point on Saturday, a six-stroke lead entering play on Sunday, a four-stroke lead with nine holes to play and lost by two. He double-bogeyed the par-5 15th by hitting his tee shot into a a group of cactus, using his putter and his caddie to extract the ball and cactus, respectively, then hitting a 5-iron into the water. He shot 75, the highest round registered by anyone in the top 60.

Are you a fan of Golf World's weekly "Front 9" magazine feature? If so, we're offering you a chance to co-author it.

Inspired by The New Yorker's cartoon-caption writing contest, Golf World is featuring the "Front 9 Punchline Contest" in each issue. Here's how it works: Every Sunday around noon, Golf World's editors will post a Front 9 setup line to our magazine's Facebook page. We'll give you until 3 p.m. on Monday to enter your best punchline to that setup.

(An example from a recent Front 9: Dan Forsman wins the Champions Tour's opener, the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.

And then he cried in the post-round interview. It's about time someone started emulating Steve Stricker.)

Golf World editors will then select the winning entry, which will appear (along with the writer's name and hometown) in that week's issue of Golf World. In addition to having their entry published in the magazine, winners will receive an official Golf World logo hat.

Our last winner was Ruel Gaviola of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., whose winning entry appeared in the Feb. 6 issue of the magazine:

The set-up line: Bubba Watson buys "General Lee," the car used in "The Dukes of Hazzard" television show.

The winning punchline: "Thankfully, Bubba refused to bid on a pair of Daisy Dukes." 

-- Geoff Russell, Golf World Editor-In-Chief

It's too early in most areas of the country for golfers to be worried about their club's big show now, but that crown jewel -- the club championship -- will be front and center before you know it. And anyone who thinks they're a contender will be in full preparation mode. In most cases, the field will be wide open with plenty of favorites. But in the case of the profiled subject to follow, a dominant pattern of winning can bring with it the heavy toll of jealousy and contempt.

McKitrick wins another, wants more, more, more

The numbers roll off of Arlene McKitrick's tongue in a simple tone, as if she were recalling the items on a grocery list. But she's actually listing the number of golf tournaments she's won.

Club championships won: 95. Senior tournaments won: 60. Other countries she's won titles in: nine.

McKitrick, a resident of Longboat Key, Fla., upped her total number of tournament victories to 171 this past weekend, winning Longboat Key Club's women's club championship for the 35th consecutive year. According to our records, her 95 club titles are a record for male or female winning championships at multiple clubs, and her 35 titles at Longboat Key are fourth-best for a single club for women and are the most consecutively won for either sex.

McKitrick's club-championship victory breakdown by club includes: Longboat Key Club, 35; TPC Prestancia, 9; New Albany Country Club, 9; Tartan Fields, 8; Congressional, 7; Ritz-Carlton Members Club, 6; Concession, 5; The Oaks, 5; Sara Bay, 4; The Lakes, 3; Washingtonian, 2, and Wintergreen, 2. A member now of at least three clubs, McKitrick can't add to her Washingtonian total: According to Golf Digest Architecture Editor Ron Whitten, the 36-hole facility closed its courses by 1986.

And to think she could have won more. Of the eight tournaments she's lost, she was runner-up in all of them.

McKitrick, who didn't start playing golf until she was 30, is 65 and clearly living by the Golf Digest motto to "Think young, play hard."

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- While over the last year or so it has begun to seem like the marquee pairing on any given day on the PGA Tour is whatever group has Webb Simpson in it, the biggest draw on Thursday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open was the troika of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. Aside from their star power, the threesome had at least one other thing in common -- they all could use a big 2012.

The 41-year-old Mickelson, distracted a week ago by a health issue involving his daughter Sophia, was coming off a missed cut in the Farmers Insurance Open in his hometown of San Diego. Last year, he and Johnson, who share both their teacher, Butch Harmon, and a penchant for big money games, had their private battle scheduled for early in the week at Whisper Rock GC. This year on Wednesday afternoon, Mickelson had a different mission. He ran into Kyle Stanley at Whisper Rock and if anyone understands what a 72nd hole disappointment feels like, it's Phil. They played a few holes and talked about Torrey Pines. "We were just out there practicing. He was there so we played a few holes. I wouldn't say it was organized but it was nice," said Stanley. "It's nice to play with an older guy who has a lot of experience and you can always learn from it." They decided to play again after their opening rounds on Thursday.

Big crowds followed Mickelson, Johnson and Fowler on Thursday. (Photo: Getty Images)

Mickelson is also dealing with a lawsuit involving a Canadian man who has been posting comments about him on Yahoo. "I'm all for freedom of speech," said Mickelson after his opening round 68, "but I won't tolerate defamation and so I've got a great attorney, Glenn Cohen, who's on it."