PGA TOUR: 2008 Mid-Year Awards

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With the 2008 PGA TOUR season reaching the halfway mark of the regular season, PGATOUR.COM's Helen Ross hands out a few awards:

Trevor Immelman saved par from this lie in the third round of the Masters. (Getty Images)

Shot of the year: For sheer excitement, Ian Poulter's ace at the 16th hole at Augusta National in the first round of the Masters certainly had to be considered. Ditto for Trevor Immelman's all-important drive at the 18th hole on Sunday that found the fairway and prompted him to exhale a visible sigh of relief. For sheer serendipity, though, you'd have to look at the sand wedge that Immelman hit to the 15th green on Saturday. The ball spun back and began to slide down the slick slope toward the pond in front of the green.

"I was begging for it to stop as soon as it could," Immelman would later recall, and just before it reached the point of no return, the ball obeyed. "I must say, I couldn't quite believe it when it stayed up," admitted the young South African, who chipped to 5 feet and saved par.

Immelman's shot harkened back to the one Fred Couples hit on the 12th hole in 1992 -- although that fortuitous landfall came in the final round of his only major championship win. And this is not to say Immelman wouldn't have won the Masters without the clutch par. The shot certainly was pivotal in preserving the two-stroke cushion he took into the final round, though, on the way to winning the Green Jacket.

Round of the year: Plenty of players have gone low this year, most notably Roland Thatcher, who shot a 61 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun. Three others have 62s and a whopping 10 have shot 63.

These guys really are good, aren't they? However, for sheer determination, nothing compared with Tiger Woods' performance in his opening match of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Down 3 to J.B. Holmes after he made bogey on the 13th hole, Woods won the next four with three birdies and an eagle, then parred the 18th to advance with the 1-up victory. The game's No. 1 player went on to win the event, which attracted 64 of the top 65 players in the world -- his second of three straight wins to start the 2008 season.

Trevor and Carminita Immelman courtside at Madison Square Garden (Getty Images)

Moment of the year: There were many during Trevor Immelman's visit to New York City in the 48 hours after his Masters victory. He and his wife Carminita had never been to the Big Apple, and they embraced every adventure like wide-eyed kids -- exclaiming over the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park, drinking in the crystal-clear views from the Empire State building and reveling in courtside seats at the New York Knicks game and the halftime visit to the Boston Celtics locker room.

My favorite, though? The elevator operator at Fox News, a quintessential New Yorker who looked like he had walked straight out of a "Law & Order" episode. He congratulated Immelman and then said, 'You know, it's nice to see someone other than Tiger win every once in a while."

And when the Masters champ finished his interviews, the man was patiently waiting outside with a golf ball, and Immelman was more than happy to give him an autograph.

Welcome back award: Not that he really went anywhere, but this one goes to Ernie Els. What a pleasure it was to see one of the game's really good guys get back into the winner's circle.

He's struggled with self-doubt -- that little guy who sat on his shoulder, Els used to say -- and has recently started working with Butch Harmon to regain the form that made him a three-time major winner. Whether he contends again on golf's grandest stage remains to be seen, but it was great to see him win The Honda Classic, his first PGA TOUR victory since 2004.

Fighting Autism

Video: Els, Kresge working to create awareness

Feel-good award: And while we're on the subject of Els, kudos to him and Cliff Kresge for speaking out about the battle each of their sons wages with autism.

At the Verizon Heritage, the two invited their fellow pros to wear blue puzzle pins to raise awareness of the developmental disability, which affects one out of every 150 children in the United States and predominantly targets boys. Els' wife, Liezl, also filmed a PSA to promote April as Autism Awareness month.