Hilton Head is up next for Castle alum Wilson

AUGUSTA, Ga. » There's no rest for the weary, as Dean Wilson continues his PGA Tour journey with a trip to Hilton Head, S.C., this week and the Verizon Heritage, where Australian Aaron Baddeley is the defending champion.

The 37-year-old Castle High product didn't make the cut at this event last year, finishing in a tie for 113th with rounds of 72-76 for a 148 total. The cut in 2006 was 142. As for the other majors later this summer, Wilson has already qualified for the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship, but will likely have to do a little more to rate an invite to the British Open.

"I will go through the qualifier, the 36-hole qualifier, or the world ranking or something," Wilson said of trying to play in his first British Open. "We'll just find out when the time comes."

Wilson earned $43,085 for finishing in a tie for 30th at yesterday's Masters. It brings his total for 2007 to $460,718 in 11 tournaments this season. He is currently 52nd on the money list, jumping four spots from a week ago. In the FedExCup chase, Wilson also moved up four spots from 56th to 52nd with 1,961. Vijay Singh continues to be first with 12,361, with Tiger Woods close behind with 12,098.

Johnson sets strange marks

Zach Johnson won for only the second time on the PGA Tour, and his winning score of 1-over 289 matches the highest in Masters history, the last coming 51 years ago by Jack Burke. Sam Snead also won with a 289 two years prior to that in 1954.

Johnson's third-round 76 tied the third-highest single round by a Masters winner. The last player to turn that trick and win was Jack Nicklaus at the 1966 Masters. Snead had the highest third round of a winner with 77 in 1952 and Nick Faldo matched that score in 1989.

What Johnson did do right was go 11 under on the par 5s without ever trying to go for the long holes in two. He laid up all 16 times this week, but still posted the kind of number necessary to win the Masters.

"It was a day of perseverance and patience," Johnson said. "I felt like my game was good coming into today. I felt like I had a chance to really move up the board. I don't even know what I shot (3-under 69), but I know that I had a lot of people giving me some good words of wisdom over the last week."

Inside the numbers

This week's difficult scoring conditions made this the fourth-toughest Masters in history. The most difficult was the 1956 Masters with a weekly scoring average of 77.183. The year before in 1955 was the second-highest at 76.1888 with the third-highest occurring the year Nicklaus won in 1966 at 75.885.

This week's Masters the scoring average was 75.881. Scoring improved dramatically yesterday with a total of 74.333 after the same 60 golfers averaged 77.350 during Saturday's particularly blustery conditions.

The hardest hole yesterday was the par-4 first with a scoring average of 4.600. There were only three birdies -- by Mark Calcavecchia, Luke Donald and Robert Karlsson -- 28 pars, 22 bogeys, five double bogeys and two others.

One of those others was by Jeev Milka Singh, who went into the record books with a quadruple-bogey 8 yesterday. He tied the highest score ever recorded on the 455-yard hole, one that Phil Mickelson also tripled yesterday. Olin Browne (1998), former Kailua resident Scott Simpson (1998) and Billy Casper (2001) were the first men to card a snowman at No. 1.

The easiest hole was the par-5 second with a scoring average of 4.483. There were two eagles by Calcavecchia and Donald, 30 birdies, 25 pars and three bogeys, including one by Wilson.