Golf’s Seasonal Break Is Over

It’s early January, it’s the tropics, and there hasn’t been an event with PGA Tour players in a little more than three weeks, so you know what that means. It’s time to start all over again, shake off the rust that has been allowed to collect on these pros since mid-December and watch them kick off the 2004 season.

Here on the northwest coast of Maui, the $5.3-million Mercedes Championships starts Thursday -- the first tournament of the new year, soon to be followed by 47 more.

To show you what a serious business this is, there is about $260 million in prize money up for grabs this year, and they’re handing out $954,000 this week to the winner in the 30-player field. The only players here are tournament winners from last year, even though it may seem that last year never really ended. The Tour Championship ended on Nov. 9 but was followed by the “silly season” of big-money, unofficial events.

“There is no real off-season,” Davis Love III said. “It just kind of continues right along.”

Love, who won four times last year, and Tiger Woods, who won five times, are getting an earlier start than they did a year ago. Love didn’t play until Pebble Beach, which was a good choice, because he won it. Woods was getting over knee surgery and didn’t come back until Torrey Pines, which was also a good decision because he won that.

Woods wound up with his fifth consecutive PGA Tour player-of-the-year award, although he ceded the money title to Vijay Singh, who made $7.5 million while winning four times.

For Woods, it has been a whirlwind couple of months. First he got engaged, then he was the host of a tournament at Sherwood Country Club, then he turned 28, then he took a week off to practice at home in Florida, then he showed up here Tuesday afternoon at the Plantation Course to play a few holes to get ready for today’s pro-am.

Woods jumped into a golf cart with his caddie at the wheel and sped off for a round of speed golf.

What they found was a wet course, pounded by rain nearly all last week. The worst of it was a two-day period when more than 13 inches fell, turning many of the 108 bunkers into sandy tide pools.

Not that Ernie Els is worried. Els is the defending champion here, winning by eight shots with a score of 31 under par. He also won the next week, at Honolulu, so Els knows something about a fast start.

“It was a perfect start,” he said. “I’ve got some good memories.”

Woods can share the feeling, because he is a two-time winner of this tournament. Beginning his eighth full year on the PGA Tour, Woods has won 39 times, eight of them majors, and is the all-time leading money winner in the history of professional golf, with $39.7 million.

There will surely be some scrutiny of Woods in 2004, even at its beginning, and that will be the result of his lack of success in last year’s four majors. It was his worst showing since he turned pro.

His best major was at the British Open, where he tied for fourth. He tied for 15th at the Masters, tied for 20th at the U.S. Open and tied for 39th at the PGA Championship.

None of that means Els believes Woods is in decline.

“Tiger is still the No. 1 player in the world,” he said.