John Hawkins has been covering the PGA Tour for Golf World and Golf Digest magazines since 1996. We asked him for his take on the 72nd Masters.

How could Trevor Immelman win the Masters?
John Hawkins: Because this tournament has changed dramatically in just the last few years. The Masters has become a control player's golf tournament. There are power tournaments and there are control tournaments, and it's not very often that the character of a tournament shifts as much as this one has. The combination of the length, the rough they've added, the firmness of these greens . . . It's not a power player's course anymore.

Where was Trevor Immelman on your list of potential winners before the week began?
Never crossed my mind. My next-door neighbor was looking for a sleeper pick, but there was absolutely no reason to think Trevor Immelman had a shot here. OK, he tied for fifth here in '05, the year he made the hole-in-one at 16 on Sunday. But Trevor Immelman hadn't done anything lately, and he had never contended in a major.

Does this officially end talk of a Grand Slam in 2008?
It has to. This guy isn't going to win all four. Listen, it was a long shot to begin with. Tiger's bad golf is a lot better than most people's good, and that impresses me more than anything. I still can't believe he finished second here. They tried to give it to him, but he wasn't good enough this week to take it. That happens sometimes.

Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman have won the past two Masters. Is that good or bad for golf?
I think it's good, overall. It's easy to get caught up in how good a guy plays and how popular he is, but it's good for other guys to win once in a while. Both Zach and Immelman are great people, fairly new fathers, good guys. Trevor Immelman was a great player before today, but he wasn't even in the second tier until now.

That makes three consecutive Masters that Tiger hasn't won. Why can't he win here anymore?
The changes here have actually hurt him. Woods can win anywhere anytime, but he can't win when he putts poorly. He hardly made anything all week. Didn't even hit the hole from four or five feet on 13 today, then he three-putted 14. Don't worry: Tiger is only halfway to his green jacket collection. He'll win four more before he's done.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- The PGA Tour's revised cut policy for 2008 will barely make it through the West Coast swing, as the Players Advisory Council voted unanimously to alter weekend qualifications yet again during a meeting this week in Los Angeles. Full-field events will return to the low-70-and-ties stipulation used before the start of the season, with a 54-hole cut being added if the number of final-round competitors still exceeds 78.

However complicated or trivial the revision may seem, the "double cut" gives tournaments an extra chance to reduce fields to a manageable size, particularly when daylight and frost delays are significant issues early in the season. It also gives players one more chance to shoot themselves back into contention, which was the primary gripe among those who opposed the original modification when it went into effect last month.

The tour's policy board will vote on the latest proposal when it gathers at the Honda Classic in two weeks. Board member Joe Ogilvie said he saw no reason why the revision wouldn't go into effect almost immediately, which would end a brief but tumultuous issue that claimed unusually large numbers of players on two separate occasions.

At the Sony Open in Hawaii, the first full-field event of '08, low 70 plus ties meant that 87 players would have qualified for the weekend. The revision lowered the actual cut by one stroke, however, leaving 18 players out of the tournament, each of whom collected just less than $10,000 in prize money. Two weeks later in San Diego, 19 players were on the original cutline and sent home. At that point, it had become clear that the modification would soon be reconsidered.

"The tour recognized this was a very unpopular decision and has done something to rectify that," said Olin Browne, a former member of both the policy board and the PAC. "Good for them to see something that wasn't well-received by the majority of us. The board makes policy and we have to live by it, and there will always be decisions the players disagree with. The question is whether that decision in the best interests of the PGA Tour. I don't think the players saw how this benefited anyone."

-- John Hawkins

Do not adjust your TV set -- the brown splotches on Westchester CC's greens are just as obvious to those in attendance at the Barclays as they are to viewers at home. The putting surfaces on the first, second, sixth and 10th holes are particularly unsightly, marred by patches of discolored grass where there is any turf at all.

Overall, the speed of the greens doesn't approach the PGA Tour standard of about 11 on the Stimpmeter. Add the inch of rain that fell here Tuesday, and one of the tour's classier venues has become a dartboard. In this league, Slow + Soft = Very Easy, which is why close to half of the 144-man Barclays field will finish the first round under par.

That's a far cry from the numbers that helped this venue earn a reputation as one of the tour's toughest tests. "They're awful," one veteran caddie said of the greens. "When you consider what we're playing for, they're certainly not up to snuff."

Maybe so, but with scores so low, there hasn't been a lot of complaining. These greens may look bad, but for the most part, they're rolling better than you'd think -- even a card-carrying pessimist finds little wrong with course conditions after an opening 67. Tour official Mark Russell did admit that some pin positions wouldn't be used because it's bad business to park a flag in dirt. You won't hear a lot of whining about that, either.

Before it became the leadoff batter in the FedEx Cup playoff series, this tournament was played in June, prior to when the most stressful summer weather has left its mark. "What we've had [recently] are thundershowers, and that's certainly going to damage the grass," said John Kennedy, Westchester's director of golf. "What usually follows are warm temperatures, and by the middle of August, [course maintenance] can get very difficult."

So there. At least somebody will be laboring this week.

--John Hawkins

On a rainy Tuesday before the PGA Tour's inaugural FedEx Cup playoff series, you could do a lot worse than to run into Tom Pernice, one of the tour's deepest thinkers and most outspoken veterans. Questions about the playoff format have taken on new meaning with the absence of Tiger Woods, who will skip this week's gathering at Westchester CC after saying for months that he planned on playing in all four events.

Unlike last November, when he was extremely critical of Woods for missing the season-ending Tour Championship, Pernice had a more pragmatic viewpoint on Tiger's latest no-show. "We need to have regulations that will make everybody play," he said. "We're all independent contractors, per se, but we tend to hide behind that too much. It ultimately comes down to Tim [commissioner Finchem] needing to be stronger."

When Woods announced last Friday that he wouldn't tee it up at the Barclays, he had, however intentionally, dealt several blows to the credibility of the postseason structure. The whole idea of this four-week finale was to get a full commitment from all of the game's best players. You weren't supposed to be able to win this thing unless you played in every tournament. If the concept doesn't resonate with the world's top golfer, why should even hardcore fans feel obligated to care?

The big loser here is Barclays, a financial institution that has spent millions of its advertising dollars with the tour. Television ratings obviously will suffer without Woods in the field -- this happens to be the only playoff event covered by CBS, which has become the tour's largest and most important network carrier. "How can you get Tiger to be passionate about our tour and act in everybody's best interests?" Pernice wondered aloud. "I don't think there's an easy answer to that."

There is also the embarrassment factor. Woods actually made a commercial promoting the playoff series, whistling "Eye of the Tiger" as he laces up his spikes in the locker room before heading out to battle. The tour has promoted its new end-of-summer shindig excessively, operating under the premise that sponsors, networks and golf fans would get the best it has to offer for an entire month.

That isn't going to happen. Woods will play next week in Boston and the week after that in Chicago, but with five victories in 2007, a victory list that includes his 13th major title and two more WGCs, he has basically locked up Player of the Year honors before the playoffs have started. He doesn't need the $10 million in retirement credit that will go to the playoff-series champion, but if he wins two of the three remaining playoff tilts, he's likely to claim the top prize, anyway.

Bottom line? A guy who can find motivation in a kernel of popcorn seems to be suffering from a lack of incentive when it comes to the postseason. "We can't promise that everybody's going to play unless we have regulations," Pernice added, referring to everyone who might have been counting on Woods' unconditional commitment. "At some point, Tim has to sit down with Tiger and Phil [Mickelson] and find out what they want to do, because this thing won't work without them."

--John Hawkins