COUPLES HAVING SINGULAR SUCCESS.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

Fred Couples demonstrated his offseason wizardry again last week, winning his fourth Skins Game title to go along with his three victories in various sponsor versions of the Shark Shootout and two wins in the Hyundai Team matches.

It extended a surprisingly solid season for the popular 44-year-old Santa Barbara resident, who also won on the PGA Tour for the first time since the 1998 season and will try to stretch that success in next week's Target World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club.

``I think the best thing that I do, I don't get flustered,'' the 1992 Masters champion and two-time Nissan Los Angeles Open winner said after raising his Skins Game career earnings to $2.875 million in 10 appearances.

His current two-win year, which includes an emotional victory at the Shell Houston Open, could not have appeared more out of reach at the start of the season, which Couples approached with longtime back problems and new swing thoughts courtesy of instructor Butch Harmon.

``What he was telling me clicked pretty quickly and I started to play some pretty good golf,'' Couples said.

When the putting also started to click, the combination produced the victory at Houston in June, bringing back memories of his All-American college days at University of Houston.

The back problem flared up throughout the second half of this year - so severely at the late-season Chrysler Championship in Florida that Couples said he dropped to his knees during pro-am play and wound up bed-ridden.

But he said he felt good again going into the Skins Game, where he won the final eight holes - the last in a three-hole playoff.

Age, as well as the balky back, could work against him in Tiger Woods' annual tournament next week at Sherwood, where Couples teamed with Raymond Floyd, Brad Faxon and David Duval to win two-man team titles at Greg Norman's Shark Shootout before Woods' Target World Challenge came to the Thousand Oaks course in 1999.

But Couples is pleased to be in a field that encompasses many of the best players in the world, including late addition Robert Allenby, another past Nissan Open winner, who was added Wednesday when David Toms had to withdraw because of hand surgery.

If his back cooperates, who knows what might happen? Even in a 16-man field that includes No. 1 Woods and 10 other players ranked among the top 18 in the world, a healthy, still long and recently sharp Couples should be regarded as a contender.

--Walrus power: Craig Stadler attempts to extend a sensational season this week when he teams with his son, Kevin, in a title defense at the Office Depot Father/Son Challenge at ChampionsGate Golf Resort in Orlando, Fla.

The elder Stadler, a four-time USC All-American and winner of the 1982 Masters, won this season on both the PGA and Champions tours in his first year of eligibility for the age-50-and-over Champions Tour, finishing with three victories on the circuit formerly known as the PGA Senior Tour.

His biggest Champions Tour victory came five weeks after his 50th birthday at the Ford Senior Players Championship, one of the five majors. One week after winning the Ford title, he won on the PGA Tour at the B.C. Open.

The bushy-mustached man long known on tour as the Walrus will represent half of the USC rooting interest in the Father/Son title defense.

Kevin, the Pacific-10 Conference Golfer of the Year as a senior with the Trojans in 2002, was the stalwart of Team Stadler on the final day of last year's 36-hole scramble format, making a 30-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole against Hale and Steve Irwin after both teams shot 60-60 to force extra holes.

``It was pretty exciting to be part of that,'' Craig said, ``especially on the back nine, when almost every hole was a birdie. We were tied after nine, then made eight birdies and still almost lost it. That just didn't seem right.''

The Stadlers, however, got one more chance when the Irwins followed their own eight successive back-nine birdies with a par on the final hole, setting the stage for Kevin to get his team into a playoff with an 8-foot birdie putt.

``We're certainly looking forward to doing it again,'' Craig said. ``It is always a tournament Kevin and I, as well as all of the other fathers and sons, look forward to. It is just such a great way to end the year.''

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ON THE GREEN

- Dave Shelburne