Tour Insider

Season Starts with No Guarantees

By Associated Press

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are absent by choice. So many others are not at the season-opening Mercedes Championships because they failed to meet the toughest criteria on the PGA Tour.
 
This is for winners only.
 
Golf offers no guarantees, and there is no better reminder than to scan the list of results at Kapalua last year to see who didn't make it back.
 

Ernie Els nearly won twice in Hawaii last year, but his season ended in July with surgery on his knee and no PGA Tour victories to his credit for the first time since 2001. Jonathan Kaye was on the verge of getting into a playoff at Kapalua until he muffed a chip on the final hole and finished second. He never came close to winning the rest of the year.
 
Mike Weir will have to wait two weeks to start his season. Zach Johnson, a promising rookie in 2004, went winless as a sophomore. Adam Scott won a tournament that didn't count. For all the fist pumps and theatrical moments for Chris DiMarco, none included posing with a trophy.
 
Of the 31 players in the field at Kapalua last year, only eight of them will be teeing it up Thursday on the Plantation course to start the new season. Throw in three guys who are taking this week off -- Woods, Mickelson and Retief Goosen -- and just more than one-third of the players were eligible.
 
"There were eight guys that played last year? That means 20 new guys? Wow," said Brad Faxon, who is one of those 20 having won the Buick Championship for his first PGA Tour victory in four years. "That just shows it's harder to win. And there are a few guys that aren't here that win a lot."
 
There are 48 chances to get into the Mercedes Championships. Woods and Mickelson combined to take away 10 of those opportunities, including three of the majors. Vijay Singh won four times, and other multiple winners were Justin Leonard, Padraig Harrington, Kenny Perry and Bart Bryant, all of whom won twice.
 
If the veterans looks over their shoulder, they will find 12 players at Kapalua here for the first time. That list includes Sean O'Hair, a Q-school graduate a year ago, and Jason Gore, who went from nowhere to the final group of the U.S. Open and back to nowhere, until his meteoric rise to the big leagues.
 
Gore is new, but he gets it.
 
"I was a little worried when the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, going into a new year," Gore said. "That's what makes golf a great game. You're only as good as the last shot you hit. You move on from there, and hopefully get off to a good start this week, see what happens."
 
The great thing about golf is that no one knows where it all will lead.