There comes a time in any field when the game changes, when you wake up and realize, “It’s my time, baby”, or alternately, “Holy smokes, when did I get so old and out of touch? And why does my back ache?”

I imagine there was a time in the 1960s when Bill Halley and the Comets tried to play a reunion gig, but word got out there was a new folk singer named Bob Dylan carving up Greenwich Village and ticket sales for the Comets dried up. Or a time when the aging Beach Boys of the 1990s tried to play a summer festival and gazed longingly at the gigantic crowd across the way for these young whippersnappers from Seattle called Nirvana. Grunge? Huh?

All of which is one way of saying: Tiger Woods missed the cut at Quail Hollow, and by Sunday the winner was a 23-year-old dressed like a Creamsicle, with a skater’s flat-brimmed cap and facial hair to resemble the Wooderson character from “Dazed and Confused.” Oh, and one of the players he beat in the playoff was also 23 and now is the No. 1

An entertaining New Orleans duel Sunday netted Jason (The Walking Coma) Dufner his first PGA Tour win, but all I could think about was the runner-up: Ernie (The Walking Yip) Els.

Ouch. This is twice in the last six weeks we’ve seen Els, a beloved player whose gorgeous golf swing and rhythmic tempo could move a man to write sonnets, draw back his putter and commit crimes against the royal and ancient game. It’s enough to make one wonder: Is Ernie Els done as a man who can close out golf tournaments?

In late March, at Innisbrook, Els fought for an invite to the Masters. He needed a win to earn the nod, and had a real chance. But he missed a four-footer for birdie on 16 (yikes) and another four-footer on 18 (double yikes) to miss out on the playoff won by Luke Donald. He gave a now-famous uncomfortable interview to Steve Sands of NBC that indicated Els’ mind was somewhere on the seventh level of golf hell. And as the 2012 Masters played out on his hi-def TV, Els probably

To paraphrase the late, great Robert F. Kennedy, who may indeed have been a golf fan: Some look at a Ben Curtis-John Huh-Matt Every showdown at the Valero Texas Open, and say, "Why?"

I look at a Curtis-Huh-Every showdown at TPC San Antonio and say, "Why not?"

Not every low-wattage PGA Tour stop is created equal. When Carl Pettersson moon-walked to victory at Hilton Head last week, it counted as a certifiable snoozer. There was no competition, and Pettersson is a guy who already owned four PGA Tour wins, only cementing his status as a winner on tour.

In San Antonio, by contrast, we had three storylines worth our while, even if CBS viewed the event so un-newsworthy that network executives gave Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo a week off.

• Storyline 1: The case of Curtis, author of what is still the most improbable major championship win in the Tiger era. Amazingly, nearly a decade after that miracle at the 2003 British Open, Curtis hasn't faded into oblivion despite the fact that

Not saying that Carl Pettersson's five-shot win at sleepy Harbour Town lacked any drama, but … wait, I'm losing focus … drifting … zzzz … Oh, wait, did I nod off there? Sorry about that. Let me slap myself in the face and dunk my head in ice water. I'll be right back.

Right. Where were we? Surely, the golf world that gave us the epic "Bubba Watson Hook Shot from Heaven" during last week's playoff at the Masters would build on the drama and deliver dynamite theatre at the always popular Harbour Town RBC Heritage stop.

Or, maybe not.

Pettersson is a fine player, surely. Ranked 68th in the world coming into the week, the Swedish-born, American-educated guy with the Chris Farley physique won his fifth event with ease over Zach Johnson, tying Tiger Woods for biggest margin of victory this year. The win was devoid of drama – and big names – and as a result, you had guys like young Tour player Brendan Steele tweeting congratulations to Pettersson, whom he called a great guy and a "very

Consider the case of poor Louis Oosthuizen.

He authored arguably the greatest shot of the post-Sarazen Era in Masters history on Sunday – until it wound up only being the second-best shot of the day.

What do you call Bubba Watson's ridiculous, eye-wateringly beautiful, momentous, historic, impossible hook shot from the pines on the second playoff hole, No. 10 at Augusta National Golf Club, the one that won him his first Masters? Bubba's Easter Miracle?

Oosthuizen probably doesn't have a name for it. He is still probably trying to erase the thought bubble over his head that read – "You have got to be #$

Late this coming Sunday afternoon, amid the cathedral of pines at Augusta National, there is a chance a player will have a green jacket in his grasp, if only he taps in from 12 inches.

At that point, said player's caddie is hereby commanded to say, prior to the tap-in: "Remember I.K. Kim, brother. Remember I.K. Kim. Focus!"

On a Sunday in golf when Hunter Mahan became the highest-ranked American player in the world and Ernie Els officially failed to qualify for the Masters for the first time since 1993, all paled in comparison to the 23-year-old woman who missed a one-footer on 18 at Mission Hills Country Club to win the LPGA's first major of the season, the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

I.K. Kim cupped her left hand over her mouth in horror.

In a Twitter-heavy society, where our thoughts are distilled to 140 characters, you only needed four to sum up what had happened:

OMG.

Up to this point, Kim's life was a good one, flush with happy moments. Born in South Korea and now living

The Hank Haney book, "The Big Miss," comes out this week. In a related note, renowned book reviewer Tiger Woods issued his blurb over 72 holes at Bay Hill:

"Did I read my old swing coach's book? Eat my dust! – Tiger Woods.

Maybe his review won't make the back of the paperback version. His performance, however, resonated around the golf globe.

Nobody authors dismissive "Forget you's" like Tiger Woods. Whether mentally crushing Sergio Garcia or Ernie Els in the early 2000s – two items mentioned by Haney in the detailed, nuanced, instructive portrait of Tiger – or whether stymieing any talk of a permanent Tiger demise with a five-shot win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the lessons of Tiger remain.

If you give Tiger a stage to flex on, eventually he will flex.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Tiger chose the week of the Haney book and his last tournament before the Masters to put together the entirety of the Sean Foley golf swing and unveil its ball-controlling glories. Or, more

So here's a problem in the golf world today: What do we do with all those "Rory: Number One and Here to Stay!" T-shirts, hats, visors and coffee mugs?

Maybe all that gear gets shipped off to a foreign country, like all the pre-printed merchandise for the team that loses the Super Bowl. Or perhaps it's relegated to the dustbin of history, where surely there still sits never-before-seen "Sergio Garcia: Tiger Slayer!" T-shirts from the early 2000s.

This is the conundrum Luke Donald has presented us.

Just two weeks after we penned odes to the reign of Rory McIlroy as the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Rankings, certain a new era had arrived and guaranteeing the Next Great Thing's long-term hold on the spot, Donald went and won the Transitions Championship at Innisbrook in a playoff, and vaulted back to No. 1.

He did it with characteristic calm and lack of fanfare, too. No histrionics, no trash-talk in the press. He drafted behind Padraig Harrington's Thursday 61 and Ernie Els'