Golfers can get an early jump on Tiger Woods
PGA TOUR
With the best golfer in the world sidelined for the first few weeks of the season, other golfers can step up and make a name for themselves.
The PGA Tour resumes today with the same asterisk that was appended to its tournaments after June 15, 2008: *Tiger Woods is on the sidelines. Here's a look at the tour as golfers scramble to establish themselves before the No. 1 golfer in the world gets his legs back under him and is playing the kind of golf that he did at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines:
This week:
Players such as Anthony Kim, Camilo Villegas and Vijay Singh are teeing it up, but the Mercedes-Benz Championship at Kapalua, Hawaii, doesn't have the prestige that the winners-only event once had. Who's missing? Aside from Woods, who hasn't played in the event since 2005, the other top three players in the world -- Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington -- are taking a pass. Singh, last year's top money winner and the FedEx Cup champion, will be there, but don't look for him again for the rest of the West Coast Swing. Reports are he'll have knee surgery for torn cartilage and miss about five weeks after the opening event.
Quick question, what do these players in the Mercedes field have in common: Will MacKenzie, Dustin Johnson, Marc Turnesa, Cameron Beckman, Ryan Palmer and Davis Love III? They all failed to win during the tour's regular season in 2008 but won during the Fall Series after the Tour Championship to get into the field at Kapalua, where last place is still worth more than $100,000.
Where's Tiger?
Woods began hitting balls in December, which was earlier than expected after his reconstructive knee surgery in June, and said in late December that the knee felt better than ever. Still, no one knows when he'll return, though it seems safe to assume he will play competitively before the Masters in April, perhaps at the World Golf Championships at Doral in mid-March or two weeks later at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, both in his home state of Florida. Expect this: When he returns, he'll be ready to compete . . . and win.
West Coast swing
A look at the eight tournaments that open the season:
Today-Sunday: Mercedes-Benz Championship, Kapalua, Hawaii. Defending champion: Daniel Chopra. Fabulous start for Chopra, who won $1.1 million, then failed to record a top-10 finish the rest of the year, missing 12 of 26 cuts.
Jan. 15-18: Sony Open, Waialae, Hawaii. Defending champion: K.J. Choi. Michelle Wie, who has played in this event four times, will sit it out for the second straight year while getting ready to play on the LPGA tour.
