The Comeback Kid

Fred couples will be the first to tell you that just two people, his agent and his banker, give a hoot that he is the only player to have won the Silly Season's grand slam (Kapalua, the World Cup, the Shark Shootout and the Johnnie Walker World Championship). He will also acknowledge that at age 37 his time as one of the premier players in the game is running short and he doesn't have much, other than money and a bad back, to show for it. That's why last week Couples promised to play in 26 Tour events in 1997, his most since 1988.

It's not as if Couples has been in a slump. This year he made 19 starts on Tour, won the Players Championship and earned $1.25 million, the second-highest total in his career. Last week he finished second at Kapalua to take home $130,000 more. But he wasn't a factor in the majors—other than a brief run on Sunday in the British Open—and hasn't had a multiple-win season in official events since 1992.

Couples says he will do two things during the Silly Season to better prepare for the upcoming year: eliminate international travel, which puts stress on his fragile back, and spend as much time in the gym working out as on the couch working a channel changer.

Super Pooper

It's called the Johnnie Walker Super Tour, but after contending with rain, heat, wind and cold last week while traveling 4,848 miles to play rounds in four Asian capitals in six days, the far-flung exhibition became more like a super slog for Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie, Vijay Singh, Ian Woosnam and the four Asian players competing against them.

The boondoggle began on Nov. 5 on an unseasonably warm, 89° day in Taipei, where Els shot a 67 at Ta Shee Golf and Country Club to tie Lin Keng-chi of Taiwan and Park Nam Sin of South Korea for the lead. After the round a renovated 747 owned by a Malaysian sultan jetted the players and their entourages to South Korea and the Seoul Country Club for the second 18. In 50° temperatures Woosnam, who has been fighting a bad back all year, shot a 70 to join Els atop the leader board. "The ball was going 15 yards shorter than in Taipei," Woosnam said before hopping on a flight to Manila, where the group played through the tail end of Typhoon Ernie. Fittingly, Els regained the lead on the strength of a 71 at Orchard Golf and Country Club. "If conditions had been any worse, we would have been playing with snorkels," said Woosnam.

The final round was played on Sunday at Thana City Golf and Country Club in Bangkok, in sweltering heat. Els and Woosnam tied at 274, 14 under par. "It's been a long week flying about Asia," Els said after parring the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to claim the $100,000 first prize in the silliest Silly Season event of them all.

Makeup Meal

What has Tiger Woods been up to? Plenty, as usual. Since the Tour Championship, Woods has been chilling out with some of his new neighbors in Orlando. Woods, Mark O'Meara and Ken Griffey Jr. have spent the last two weeks waterskiing, fishing, shooting hoops and attending Orlando Magic games. While resting up for the Australian Open, the Skins Game and the J.C. Penney Classic, Woods took time to clean up some old business by squeezing in a trip to Pine Mountain, Ga., for the Fred Haskins Award dinner, which originally was scheduled for Sept. 26 but had to be postponed after Woods withdrew from the concurrent Buick Challenge tournament and blew town. The faux pas—Woods was the guest of honor as the winner of the Haskins, which goes to the top college golfer of the year—was the only misstep in his otherwise magical mystery tour earlier this fall. "I'm trying to rectify a wrong," Woods said last week.

More than 200 people were expected to attend the dinner in September, and about 100 showed up for the make-good on Monday night. One of those missing was Bob Berry, the Buick tournament director who was extremely critical of Woods's bad manners. He was in Dallas at the American Golf Sponsors annual meeting and taking the high road. "We never had any animosity toward Tiger," Berry says. "He has shown good faith, and I think the young man is handling himself well."