She giggled between questions, and she called having a share of the lead entering the final round of the Avnet LPGA Classic in Mobile, Ala., a great experience.

And like most 16-year-olds, she was well past shooting a waterlogged, final-round 6-over-par 78 that dropped her from the top of the leaderboard into a tie for 19th in a span of four, frustrating hours.

That's golf. One day your swing is flawless and then next, well ...

Thompson was in Galloway Township, N.J., Tuesday for media day of the ShopRite LPGA Classic, where she received a sponsor's exemption for next month's 54-hole event on the Bay Course at Seaview, just outside of Atlantic City....

Sure enough, he was.

Only he didn't play the role of his golfing idol, Nick Faldo, who rallied from a six-shot deficit with a 67 to win a third green jacket.

He was more like Greg Norman.

So perhaps it was only fitting that Norman, whose 78 in the final round of 1996 gets more attention than the two majors he won, was among the first to call the 21-year-old from Northern Ireland.....

O'Hair, who has missed his past five cuts and has not finished among the top 20 all year, has decided to split with Sean Foley after a relationship that began nearly three years ago in the Canadian Open.

During their time together, O'Hair won the Quail Hollow Championship and played in the Presidents Cup. But whatever had been going right started going very wrong this year, and it was time for a change.

O'Hair fired caddie Paul Tesori at the end of last year, and recently split up with caddie Brennan Little. Foley was next to go....

He finished no higher than 31st in putts per round over the last five years, but Wilson never put much stock in that because it doesn't account for how often a player is putting for birdie or getting up-and-down from just off the green. He once was 13th in average putts per greens in regulation, although that didn't account for proximity to the hole.

So the 41-year-old from Hawaii was not surprised when told about a new PGA Tour statistic that became official Monday, one that uses Shotlink data over an entire year to measure how well a player putts compared with the field.

The statistic officially is called "Strokes Gained-Putting," and it's the first time in 15 years that the PGA Tour has introduced a new core statistic. Wilson would have been among the top 11 putters in four of the last five years....

Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer confirmed Monday they will play in the event scheduled for May 19-22.

"I'm looking forward to the Sybase Match Play Championship," said Wie, who finished second in the Honda LPGA Thailand Open earlier this year. "Last year, I made the quarterfinals, and this year, my goal is to make it much further."...

The U.S. Golf Association appears to agree. Vice President Thomas O'Toole said Monday there will be talks to modify the rule, with any change taking place at the start of 2012.

"If some other agency — wind or gravity — is known to cause that ball to move, no penalty would be applied," O'Toole said at the U.S. Open media day at Congressional Country Club...

The 16-year-old faltered on Sunday at the Avnet LPGA Classic in her bid to become the tour's youngest winner. The veteran Maria Hjorth shot her second straight 67 to finish at 10-under 278, two strokes ahead of Song-Hee Kim (71) on The Crossings course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail's Magnolia Grove complex.

And when Thompson walked to the scorer's table, her water-logged final round complete, it was with an expression of anguish not jubilation.

Tied for the lead with Kim entering the round, she had a 78 to drop into a tie for 19th at 1 under. Thompson opened and closed with bogeys and had double bogeys after her ball went into the water on Nos. 14 and 15....

The lanky lefty's unorthodox swing and awe-inspiring power were already a draw.

Now, however, Waston's star power on the PGA Tour appears to be on the cusp of new heights.

Watson overcame a three-stroke deficit over the final eight holes of regulation and beat Webb Simpson in a playoff Sunday in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans for his second PGA Tour victory of the year and third of his career.

"A year ago, I was a good player who never won," said Watson, whose first PGA Tour win came at the Travler's Championship late last June. "Now I've got three under my belt, so it's crazy."

Watson, also the winner at Torrey Pines in late January, matched Simpson with a 3-under 69 to finish at 15-under 273 at TPC Louisiana. Both players birdied the 18th on the first extra hole, with Watson making a 12-foot putt to force the second playoff....