The sports world may have reached its apex this weekend.
The NFL Playoffs were underway, NCAA basketball’s conference seasons are in full swing, the Clippers beat the Lakers and live PGA golf was on the Golf Channel until 10PM both nights.
The PGA held its second consecutive tournament in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Sony Open in Hawaii, to start the season.
So, after watching the New York Football Giants manhandle the top-seeded Green Bay Packers 37-20 at Lambeau Field, I switched the channel to watch a little bit of action on the links.
The action was on late, and if you have the Golf Channel in high-def, it was worth watching as the network dedicated to man’s favorite pastime unveiled its new cameraman on wheels with the Segway-cam which provided panoramic shots and 360-degree views not usually found in sports broadcasts.
If you tuned in, you also got to see Johnson Wagner, sporting a mustache that would make Tom Selleck of Magnum, P.I. fame do a double-take, pick up his third career PGA Tour victory with a 13-under 267.
His wife, Katie, might not like Wagner’s mustachioed look, and I’ve got insider info to support that claim, but the gallery loved it, shouting a supportive “Fear the ‘stache!” as he marked his ball on the 17th hole.
Already smiling as he walked up the par-5 18th fairway with a two-stroke lead, Wagner pulled his 2nd shot into a greenside bunker, then nearly holed his third shot onto the green, leaving about eight feet to the hole.
He then lagged his putt to about 18 inches short and used all of the cup on his tap-in-to-win by one, closing out with a -3, 67 on the par-70 layout.
Wagner, playing in the next-to-last group with Charles Howell, III, began the final round two-strokes behind journeyman Matt Every before the third-round leader shot himself in the foot with a three-over 38 on the way out, from which he was not able to recover.
Wagner, a two-time All-American golfer at Virginia Tech who now lives in Charlotte, NC, previously won the 2011 Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico and the 2008 Shell Houston Open in his home state of Texas before this week’s $990,000 payday.
