Couples on his popularity: 'I know. Crazy, isn't it?'

Fred Couples' popularity is undeniable, but is it explicable? Even Couples professes to not understanding it. "I know. Crazy, isn't it?" he told Golf Monthly's Robin Barwick in South Korea, where he's playing in the Ballantine's Championship.

His popularity travels, too. He shot 81 in the third round of the Ballantine's and is well out of contention, "but Couples will be the main attraction for tomorrow's final round nonetheless," Barwick writes.

"A lot of Koreans have also chosen to copy Couples by not wearing a glove," June Lee, Ballantine's project manager for the tournament, said. "Couples looks cool not wearing a glove, and me and my friends used to say that if you want to be great at golf, don't wear a glove, just like Fred Couples."

-- John Strege