Quick 18: FedExCup, Bubba in Athens, Arnie's 82nd

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Bubba Watson used the off-week to take in the Georgia-South Carolina matchup at Sanford Stadium.

1. That was quick. What was supposed to be one last deep breath before the two-week, 144-hole sprint to the FedExCup finish turned into something that felt more like a snappy 20-minute nap. Felt that way, didn't it? No tournament golf, but lots of chirping about college football and the NFL. Or ...

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2. If you're Bubba Watson? It meant painting the G in Georgia on the field at Sanford Stadium -- -- and winning a bet with Dawgs women's basketball coach Andy Landers. Bubba bet that he could launch a golf ball out of Sanford. He did, which means he gets to be an assistant coach at a Georgia game this year. If he hadn't? Landers would caddie for him at a practice round at the Masters. Here you go. Never a dull moment with Bubba. He also tweeted that he bought a Justin Bieber singing toothbrush. Oh my.

3. Happy belated birthday to Arnold Palmer, who turned 82 Saturday. Just saying the name Arnie makes you smile, doesn't it? We would go on, but it would take a column -- and did when we did 80 reasons we love Arnie on his 80th. In his honor, smile/wink at or just take a moment to be kind to a few extra folks this week.

4. Ready for another cut? At this week's BMW Championship, it'll be a sprint to finish inside the top 30 on the FedExCup points list and make it to Atlanta for the finale. Yes, there are combinations and permutations galore, but it seems that no one HAS to win this week to get in. Third will do it ... but here's an interesting little just below the "locks to the TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP" on the list. Bo Van Pelt is 22nd in the standings; Bill Haas is 24th. Last year, Van Pelt edged Haas out of the final 30 -- by seven points.

5. Turns out "on paper" is just that. Yes, the outrageously-favored U.S. Walker Cup team got whipped 14-12 by the Great Britain and Ireland team at blustery Royal Aberdeen. The Americans, led by Jordan Speith (2-0-1) may have more folks headed for the PGA TOUR, but the GB&I team seriously outplayed them. Welshman Rhys Pugh -- no, you haven't heard of him, but he was, at 17, the youngest player in the matches -- went 3-0 to lead his side.

6. Best player in the world right now? Has to be Yani Tseng. Tseng won her fifth event -- the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship -- Sunday in a playoff over Amy Yang. In case you're counting, that makes eight wins in two years -- four of them LPGA majors.

7. No one reads anymore. Quick 18 isn't talking newspapers. Instead, local rules sheets. The latest in a line of folks -- we won't bore you with the others -- who pushed one of those sheets aside are Walker Cup captains Jim Holtgrieve and Nigel Edwards. Really?Turns out those local rules prohibited a pro golfer to serve as a caddie and GB&I's Jack Senior used his brother Joe, a club pro, to tote Saturday. The match was over before R&A officials realized the problem -- Senior and partner Andy Sullivan beat Russell Henley-Kelly Kraft 2-and-1 -- so the faux pas was just that. But, seriously, when are players -- and in this case captains -- going to start reading?

8. You might want to keep a global eye on Simon Dyson. Another of Chubby Chandler's boys, Dyson won the KLM Open for the third time. The two other players to do that? Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer. Dyson's win moved him just outside the top 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

9. Not a lot of help, huh? This week's tweet of the week is from @PaulStankowski:

Wish I'd payed more attention in school when I was young...if I did I'd be able to help my wife do my sons homework. Quick 18 feels your pain. Got asked to help with a physics problem last spring and whiffed.

10. Peter Uihlein is going to q-school. No, he's not turning pro. He's eligible to play into the second stage of both the PGA TOUR and European Tour qualifying schools and wants to do it for experience -- and, make no mistake, a gauge for late 2012. If, perchance, he gets his card, he'll turn it down. Uihlein plans to return to Oklahoma State for his senior year and will eventually turn pro.

11. Moving to the other side of the aisle? You may have been chuckling and not seen the gaffe from seriously talented political cartoonist Tom Toles in his Sept. 7 cartoon. He sketched President Barack Obama swinging a golf club with the message -- "Pivot to jobs. Not divot." Amusing take, but just one problem. Toles drew the lefthander swinging as a righthander. Oops.

12. And while we're on the Golfer-In-Chief ... he was tempted to jump into Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 and take a few laps at an event honoring Johnson last week. It wasn't just the need for speed. It was the urge to drive, period. "I was just telling these guys I'm not allowed to drive much these days -- basically just my golf cart at Camp David -- which is called Golf Cart One. "True," Obama said.

13. Is that Stanford red? Er, Cardinal? Michelle Wie shook it up and went cardinal (the official color is a deep, rich red tone according to the university) last week with a visit to the stylist. "I wanted to go red for a while, kind of wanted to change it up a little bit. Haven't done anything drastic to my hair for a long time. I didn't want to cut it, so I guess dyeing was the way to go." A couple weeks ago, she was shaking things up with a long putter on the greens. Quick 18 thinks just working on her putting might be the key.

14. He'll never make a golfer. That's what Dungannon Royal schoolmate Andy Oliver told Darren Clarke back in the day. When the 2011 British Open champ dropped by Down Royal last week to congratulate Oliver, who trained winner Just On Fire, Oliver flashed back with the Belfast Telegraph. "I remember he came to me on one occasion and said he was going to give up rugby and take up golf. Believe it or not, I said he was wasting his time and that he would never make a golfer!" And Clarke? He didn't see Oliver's career coming either. "I never knew that Andy was in this game at all. When I recall our school days, horses weren't on the agenda."

15. All for a picture on the bridge? If you're one of those who queued up by application to play St. Andrews, you're part of a record -- as in 1,800 applications to the St. Andrews Trust to play the Old Course in 2012. There were 1,500 applications in 2011.

16. Quick 18 just has to say that one of the best names in golf today is ... Stiggy Hodgson. The 5-foot-4 Englishman's real first name is Eamonn, and he got it growing up in a rough area of Chester. How? Here's his explanation: "Basically, when I was 2 ˝ , my dad was late at home from work, and the trash guy out there, we called him a bin man. I don't know what you guys call the guy who collects the trash. My dad missed him. So he had to go to the skip, the dumpsters, I think you call them, to put all our trash away. I was always glued to my dad's side. So, I went with him, and I was sort of messing around trying to help. Being knee-high, I fell into the skip, and I was rolling around, and I found a golf club. My dad, not knowing anything about golf, he thought it was a putter. And it turned out it was a mashie niblick, a 7-iron. And that's how I started golf. I went from there. And the story goes, there used to be a cartoon in England (Stig of the Dump), I don't think it's run anymore. So people just started calling me Stiggy."

17. The most telling stat right now? Tiger Woods has fallen to 46th in the Official World Golf Ranking and his Chevron World Championship can only give exemptions to players inside the top 50. He's cutting it close.

18. And finally ... Quick 18 leaves you with one last glance at that candid -- we had no ideas the microphones were open -- moment between Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner as they were killing time at the podium before last week's jobs speech. Boehner was rambling on about his 7-birdie, 5-bogey, 2-under "round of a decade" at Dismal River Golf Club and Biden, whose mind seemed elsewhere, was being, um, polite.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM and can be reached at melaniehauser@gmail.com. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR. Follow her on Twitter @melaniehauser.