The Clubhouse

Stacy Lewis might not be the LPGA Tour player of year if not for her doctor buying a raffle ticket he didn't want.

It's a bizarre twist in her unlikely path to the top of women's golf. And it's a reminder to Lewis that whenever she asks that familiar question — “Why me?” — the answer no longer is grounded in self-pity, but in sheer amazement.

“I guess it's fate a little bit,” Lewis said.

She was diagnosed with scoliosis when she was 11, so severe that she wore a back brace for 18 hours every day from age 11 until she got out of high school, and then had to have surgery when that didn't correct the curvature in her spine.

That's when Gary Brock, her orthopedic surgeon in Houston, entered the picture.

In the months leading up to her back surgery, Brock was invited to a charity event in which one of the prizes was a series of lessons with a golf pro.

“I went with a friend of mine. He was the one who wanted to win the raffle ticket,” Brock said. “I just bought one to humor him, and I ended up winning. The pro that I worked with had worked with Stacy. All summer long, he said what a great golfer she could be.”

It was enough for Brock to consider giving Lewis a chance to succeed.

The original plan was to insert two rods in her back. Brock suggested a single rod with five screws, which would allow her more flexibility and rotation for golf. It also meant going in from the side, breaking a rib and maneuvering around two major blood vessels.

“I remember he called my wife and I and said, `We need to do a different surgery,“’ said Dale Lewis, her father. “He said, `It's going to take twice as along. It's twice as risky. The recovery is twice as long. But she'll be so much more flexible.“’

Lewis spent her first year at Arkansas as a redshirt, recovering from surgery. She could only chip and putt for six months before she was allowed to swing, and she earned a spot on the team. As a junior, she won the NCAA title. As a senior, she tied for third at the Kraft Nabisco Championship on an amateur invitation. She ended her amateur career by going undefeated at the Curtis Cup.

And now this, a breakthrough year of four wins to become the first American since Beth Daniel in 1994 to win the points-based player of the year.

All because of his raffle ticket?

“Exactly,” Lewis said, smiling at how something so small can lead to something so grand. “I think it's amazing how you make a decision a certain way, how little things seem to fall into place and you can look back say that was a turning point. At the time, I didn't really think the stuff with my doctor was that big of a deal. But now looking back, I mean, he doesn't win the raffle and I'm not here today? It's crazy.”

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OOOPS!: Check out what happened when long drive champion Jamie Sadlowski St. Paul, Alberta took on the Golf Channel simulator while putting on a dispaly of his hitting prowess...

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CHANGES COMING: Lee Westwood has decided to make a couple of changes to his personnel lineup in his quest to win a major just as the window of opportunity begins to slowly close.

According to the Daily Mail, Westwood has parted ways with longtime caddie Billy Foster, who has yet to fully recover from a freak knee injury suffered earlier this year. While Westwood said at the time that Foster’s job would be there for him when he was fully healed, the Englishman’s hand was somewhat forced when it became apparent that Foster wasn’t progressing as quickly as planned coupled with news that fill-in Mike Ker was apparently considering a full-time offer to be Sergio Garcia’s caddie next year. So Westwood has decided to stick with Kerr in hopes of building some consistency.

“Lee is at that stage of his career where he has to be a little bit selfish,” said Westwood’s agent Chubby Chandler. “He’s only got four or five prime years left and he simply can’t afford to mess about with this one coming up. Billy hopes to be fit enough at the start of next year to caddie for one week and then have one week off. But Lee is playing six tournaments in a row, starting in Dubai next February, and you can’t have Billy one week and then another caddie the following week. It was a difficult decision because we all know how good Billy is as a caddie and they’re great mates as well.”

Foster isn’t the only change Westwood is making heading into 2013. A stint with short-game coach Tony Johnson has also come to an end after a disappointed showing at the final World Golf Championship event. Westwood turned to Johnson shortly after ending his relationship with long-game coach, Pete Cowen back in August.

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LONG LIVE THE KING: Arnold Palmer is back in the game - the video game, that is. Palmer, affectionately known as "The King" gets the cover art treatment alongside Tiger Woods in the soon-to-be released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 video game.

While Palmer's exploits will likely be unknown to the majority of gamers who purchase the video game, this is not the first time Palmer has been a part of the video game franchise. According to EA Sports, Palmer was part of the 05 and 06 versions of the game.

Joining Woods and Palmer as playable characters this time around are 2011 PGA Champion Keegan Bradley, second year PGA pro Bud Cauley and LPGA stars Stacy Lewis and Lexi Thompson.

Up until Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Woods was the sole image featured on the cover. Rory McIlroy joined Woods on the cover for the 11th edition of the franchise, which introduced Ryder Cup team play. For the 12th version of the cover, it was decided that the iconic Masters logo and flag would take center stage to promote the fact that Augusta National was being featured for the first time ever in a video game. Woods was limited to a silhouette figure which cynics argued was done to minimize the fallout from Tiger’s extra-martial scandal. For PGA Tour 13, EA allowed fans to vote on who should share the cover with Tiger and for the first time they had separate covers with Rickie Fowler gracing the North American edition and McIlroy the European edition of the game.

EA says they plan to reveal a “unique” European version of the PGA Tour 14 box cover in the near future.

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ENERGY JOLT: A New York Times article claiming U.S. officials have received reports of 13 deaths over the last four years being linked to possible involvement with 5-Hour Energy drink have raised some concerns. According to records seen by the Times, "since 2009, 5-Hour Energy has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion."

Jim Furyk has a multi-year deal with 5-Hour Energy and his agent said they were not too concerned about the report or any negative fallout.

"Do I like seeing these type of articles? Of course not," Andrew Witlieb told Golf.com's Alan Bastable. "But they're not going to find anything conclusive. If there were people dying from this, there would have been lawsuits by now."

Witlieb would not reveal how much his client is paid to endorse the supplement, but he did say, "Lord knows this deal was out there for everyone." According to Witlieb, the company also considered signing Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, or Gary Woodland, but settled on Furyk because of his "family-man" persona.

"It's not marketed as a 'party drink,' " Witlieb said. "They're targeting 30- to 45-year-old businessmen."

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GRAND SLAM: The PGA Grand Slam of Golf is returning to Bermuda for the next year.

The 36-hole tournament for the year’s four major champions again will be played at Port Royal Golf Course on Oct. 15-16. It has been held in Bermuda since 2007 after leaving Hawaii.

Traditionally, the event comes at the tail end of the PGA season but with the PGA going to a wraparound season next year, it will jump to the start of the "new year", played on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the 2013-14 season opener in California at the Frys.com Open.

The PGA Grand Slam of Golf features a $1.35 million purse, with $600,000 going to the winner. Padraig Harrington won this year as an alternate.

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BELGIAN BOMBER: Big-hitting Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts has won a 2013 PGA Tour card and is set to join several Ryder Cup team mates who play the majority of their golf in the United States.

“It’s official now...PGA Tour member!!” the world number 34 said on his Twitter account on Monday after the PGA Tour season came to a close on Sunday.

Colsaerts earned enough money as a non-member in 2012 and is therefore eligible for a place on the world’s most lucrative circuit next season.

The longest driver on his own circuit, at 318.6 yards he averages three yards more than the PGA Tour’s biggest hitter Bubba Watson, said that he would still commit to events in Europe.

“I will still play a few in Europe...my heart will always be back home,” added Colsaerts.

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GROUNDED: Padraig Harrington has decided to divest himself of one of golf’s guilty pleasures. The Irishman has put his 1986 Gulfstream III private jet up for sale, according to Brian Keogh at the Irish Golf Desk.

Harrington bought the 13-seater two years ago when he was, arguably, at the top of his game and in the time he has owned the aircraft, Harrington has seen his game slide from 23rd into the world rankings at the end of 2010 to a 15-year low of 96th earlier this year. The suggestion being that the financial pressures of owning and maintaining the jet helped play a part in his game’s erosion - a suggestion Harrington denies.

“I think by looking for a pattern like that, if a player buys a plane he is going to buy it at the peak of his career. So it’s easy to track that if he is at a peak and he has a bit of a trough, and then has another peak, people will always put two and two together and get five.

“I’ve flown privately for 10 years. I just did it in a different way recently.”

True or not, since parking the plane in August, Harrington has picked up one victory - the PGA Grand Slam of Golf.

While Harrington spent around $2-million for the jet when he bought it, there are suggestions he could walk away with a bit of a profit when he sells the aircraft.

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FINAL WORD

“I just think back to 10 years ago when I remember sitting in a doctor’s office and him telling me that I was going to have to have back surgery. I thought I would never play golf again. Now 10 years later I’m here winning player of the year. That’s crazy. That’s not normal, you know?” -- Stacy Lewis

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Files from the Associated Press and Reuters were used in this report