Ping GolfWelcome to Devil Ball's Proving Ground, where we put the latest golf gear through its paces. Today, we look at the Ping G25 driver.

Tester — Shane Bacon — Handicap: +1.5

Target Golf Audience — All handicaps

Initial thoughts

Back when the i20 series for Ping came out, the matte black was introduced for a company looking to show all those colored drivers that the coolest color in the game might just be the one everyone overlooked. The Anser series followed and now we have the G25, Ping's latest driver that combines one of their most successful driver series with the new-age look.

The first thing I noticed was the aerodynamic look of the G25 compared to the Anser. The idea behind the G25 is to make a driver that any amateur would play, and any pro could use (Bubba Watson currently has this driver in his bag with a pink crown). It's Ping's longest head ever made, and when you hold it up and look at it straight away, you see how it almost has a racer's helmet look to it.

I've been a big fan

You might want to remember the name Owen Kopinski. The 21-month old from Addison, Illinois is seen above refining his golf game, and his ability to get the ball in the hole and smack the golf ball consistently in the air reminds everyone of the current PGA Tour marketing pitch of Player A. vs. Player B.

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods were famous for getting into the game at an extremely early age, and it seems Owen is just like them. No pressure, kiddo, but at just 21 months you make better contact than most of us will ever dream of making.

Also, I'm a big fan of the reverse-grip. Hopefully the USGA won't ban that in the coming years and crush Owen's dreams.

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It's hard enough keeping the golf ball in play on a tough golf course in front of thousands of fans, but it's even harder when the fans are picking up any ball they see.

That's what happened on the latest episode of "The Haney Project" on Golf Channel, where Michael Phelps was in an interesting situation in China where even his balls in play couldn't be found.

Fans were picking up the world famous Olympic star's golf balls and running away with them to the point that Phelps had to coin the phrase "TIC," meaning "This is China." Matt Kuchar gave Phelps some advice, simply telling him to hit it down the middle of the fairway but on the second hole of the event, even his ball in the fairway was snagged.

The good news is Phelps had a good laugh about it. I guess when you're that famous sometimes even the golf balls you pull out of the bag are a collector's item.

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Webb Simpson — Getty ImagesThis year I was coerced by a hockey writing friend of mine to do a weekly one-and-done golf pool that allows you to pick one golfer, never to use them again in 2013. Since I'm doing it for fun (and DEFINITELY not for money, no way, no how), I figured I'd post my weekly picks here, with who I've already used under it and my record for the year, and against the others in the pool. We're calling this Darts in the Dark.

I thought last week was going to be my breakout week. Sure, I didn't have Tiger Woods or even Steve Stricker, but Charl Schwartzel looked like a solid lock to finish in the top-five after a Friday 65 and a Saturday 69. But of course, Schwartzel couldn't keep it up. He shot a Sunday 75 to drop to a T-16, not terrible, but definitely not what I was looking for.

But hey, it's the Tampa Bay Championship and yet another week to make up some ground. I'm going with the 2012 U.S. Open champion because I think Webb Simpson is set to win after a T-6 at the Northern Trust, a T-5 at

Getty ImagesWelcome to Teeing Off, where Devil Ball editor Shane Bacon and national columnist Jay Busbee take a day's topic and smack it all over the course. Suggest a future topic by hitting us on Twitter at @shanebacon and @jaybusbee. Today we talk about the possibility of a LPGA event at Augusta National.

Busbee: You have to give it to LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan: the guy is one hell of an advocate for his sport, and he doesn't much care about traditional naysaying when he comes up with ideas to grow the women's game. Like this latest: a pitch to hold an LPGA event at Augusta National. At first glance--and probably fiftieth--that seems about as likely as a PETA board meeting at a Ruth's Chris steakhouse, but let's dig a little further. First, your thoughts.

Golfmanna.comYou know what's fun? Hitting your drive in the middle of the fairway. You know what isn't fun? Getting penalized for it. Most of the time that means your ball finds a divot, but one Illinois golfer found plenty more trouble out in the middle of a Waterloo, Ill. golf course fairway.

Mark Mihal, from Creve Coeur, Mo., was playing Annbriar Golf Course, a place he frequents, when ground gave way to the 43-year-old, dropping him 18 feet into the middle of a dirt abyss.

“I was standing in the middle of the fairway,” Mihal told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday. “Then, all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was underground.”

Immediately Mihal said he thought back to a story of a man that was sleeping when ground gave way and he was never recovered, but after 20 minutes, some rope and help from the course's general manager, he was pulled from the sinkhole and back on solid ground.

The story is just as crazy as it sounds. It was the first time something like this has ever happened at Annbriar

There are few golfers, alive or dead, as accomplished as Tom Watson. The 63-year-old Watson has won 39 PGA Tour events in his career including eight majors, and made a run at the 2009 British Open that would have gone down as one of the most epic, and downright coolest, major wins if he had made par on the 72nd hole at Turnberry.

And when you're as rad as Watson, you get to do stuff like hang with your buddy George Brett at Royals spring training for a day.

He did that this past week, and while the video doesn't show Watson taking any cuts with the team, his baseball analysis is pretty spot-on.

Tiger Woods — Getty ImagesTiger Woods won this past weekend at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. This you already know. He did it with authority, and it's his second win of the year and he's now the heavy favorite at the Masters that kicks off in just 30 short days.

But what you might not know is that Tiger still plays a game, at the age of 37, that most of us, young and old, don't understand.

Asked on Sunday after his win about his early start to the final round, Woods dropped this bit of information.

Q. Two questions, I know you don't win tournaments on the second hole but that seemed like a pretty significant birdie you made in terms of kind of setting the tone for the day.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, you know, especially after you hit 9‑iron from 230 on the first hole, that was a mistake there.

Ummm, excuse me? A 9-iron from 230 yards?! I know that Tiger is a built fella, but that is absolutely absurd. Talk about dialed up irons, or wind, or hard greens or whatever you want to say about that, but the fact that a man,