Roundtable: What was the biggest surprise of 2011?

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Chris Condon/PGA TOUR

Bigger surprise: Keegan Bradley's success as a rookie or that he did it all with a belly putter?

The caddy carousel . New stars who stole the spotlight. The old reliables who weren't so in 2011. PGATOUR.COM asked its panel of experts to come up with their biggest surprise of this year and the answers were varied.

What a pleasant surprise to see David Toms bounce back and show he wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture. One of the world's biggest LSU football fans had lost his place of prominence the last few seasons because of physical problems but was able to relocate his game once his health was finally restored. Toms suffered a heartbreaking playoff loss to K.J. Choi at THE PLAYERS Championship and then returned the following week to win the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. He kept it going, too, by placing fourth at the PGA Championship on an Atlanta Athletic Club course that should have eaten his lunch. Fittingly, Toms qualified for the U.S. Presidents Cup team, the ninth time he's been selected to represent his country in international competition. - Stan Awtrey, Correspondent

Hear me out on this one. We all knew that Rory McIlroy would eventually win a major. Rors winning the Masters, especially since he entered the final round with four-shot lead, wouldn't have been a surprise at all. After he fell apart on the back nine at Augusta, though, weren't we all thinking, "It's going to take a while to get over this?" Surprisingly, it only took a little over two months -- he won the very next major. And by a whopping eight shots, to boot. -- Lauren Deason, Producer

I was surprised that some of the experienced stars such as Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, and Retief Goosen didn't step into the void left by Tiger Woods' struggles and claim their first PGA TOUR Player of the Year title. You wonder how many more majors these certain World Golf Hall of Famers would have won had they not been competing against Woods during his prime. But with Woods injured and working on another swing change, the trio combined for just one win and nine top-10s this year. Meantime, it was the younger stars who rose to the top of the leader boards. -- Craig Dolch, Correspondent

Matt Kuchar, Hunter Mahan and Jason Day had breakout seasons in 2010 as they combined for four victories and spots in The TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola. This season, though, it was 28 top-10s but no wins. Mahan had seven top-10s through May and lost in a playoff at The TOUR Championship. Kuchar was ever-steady, not missing a cut until July, but not finishing better than a tie for 20th after a runner-up finish in his Barclays title defense. Day, to me, was the most surprising of the three. The Aussie had six top-fives and two runner-up finishes in majors. It seemed like he was on every Sunday leaderboard, but never on top. -- Chris Dunham, Producer

No one expected both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to be non-factors (Tiger tied for fourth at the Masters, Phil won in Houston) as much as they were. No one expected this much parity and, while we knew the kids were coming, no one expected the fresh faces -- except for Rory McIlroy -- who popped up. But the biggest surprise? The way those broomsticks have caught on. Once thought of as a crutch for older players with the yips -- actually, anyone with the yips -- even some of the best putters in the game and some of the guys who dissed them are trying them. -- Melanie Hauser, Correspondent

Seven wins by PGA TOUR rookies this year. Sure, you could narrow the focus to Keegan Bradley and his two wins, including the PGA Championship, or Charl Schwartzel's performance down the stretch to win the Masters. But to me, the success of the rookies as a whole is even more impressive. These guys made lots of noise in 2011; now they'll need to sustain it. -- Mike McAllister, Managing Editor

I knew 2011 would be a different year -- but I didn't expect the parity we saw. Granted, Tiger Woods, the man who could normally be counted on for four to five wins a season, was -- and remains -- a question mark after recovering from knee surgery and working his through swing changes. But it wasn't one player who stepped up to fill the void, it was seven -- each of whom picked up two wins --- and the game has correspondingly benefited from the spate of new faces. Steve Stricker wasn't exactly a stretch but for two of those multiple winners -- Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley -- their wins were the first and second of their TOUR careers. And even Luke Donald was in the process of ending a five-year victory drought this year as he won the PGA TOUR money title. Can't wait to see the encores in 2012. -- Helen Ross, Chief of Correspondents

Gotta be those broomsticks and belly-style putters. Once the domain of the Champions Tour-age set, they're now in the bags of major champions like young Keegan Bradley. There's still an undercurrent of players and many fans who despise them, but the broomsticks and bellies are here to stay. I'm already itching to see if Phil stays with his in 2012. -- John Schwarb, Producer

The biggest surprise of the year was when Steve Williams showed up to caddie for Adam Scott in the U.S. Open. It was like the beginning of a really bad soap opera -- and you knew it was coming. You can't take another girl to the prom (a prom at Congressional sounds kinda classy, by the way) and expect to get back with your girlfriend later. That is exactly what happened: Williams was off Tiger's bag after a decade, although the reasons went a lot deeper than that. Almost as surprising? That Joe LaCava would leave Dustin Johnson -- after mere months -- to join Team Tiger. -- Ryan Smithson, Producer

Uh, how about pretty much everything this year? Total parity, rookie success, Tiger's continued struggles, the rise of the belly putter (bet you never thought you'd see Ernie Els or Phil Mickelson use one). Golf has become almost totally unpredictable and it's that way for two reasons: Tiger is still trying to figure out his game and therefore is no longer dominating, and because there is more depth now than ever before with players being groomed on tours all over the world. Get used to it. For more than a decade Tiger carried the game. He'll win again, and he may still catch Jack Nicklaus' record for major championships, but he won't own golf like he used to. And remember, for the most part this is what golf was like pre-Tiger, when three or four wins a year was considered huge. -- Brian Wacker, Producer