Just to note that we’re not crazy to think that January 3 is too soon to start the PGA Tour season.  The PGA Tour agrees. Next year, the start of the season is a week later: January 8.

It will be interesting to see if some of this year’s no-shows make an effort to be at next year’s Mercedes Championship. You can be sure that the sponsors, the Golf Channel, and the PGA Tour hope so. Among this year’s missing are Tiger, Phil, Adam Scott and Padraig. And of course, the field already was limited to 31 players—winners on 2007’s schedule.

I’m still tuning in for a golf fix, though. The cold here in Michigan is brutal right now—cutting right to the bone—and I’ve spend the afternoon in one of those pay-to-play indoor kids parks, watching the little guy wear himself out on a plastic jungle gym. A mug of hot buttered rum and some scenic Hawaiian vistas will be just the thing to chase away the winter blues.

BTW, if you’re in Ann Arbor, the indoor playground is called Jungle Java. It’s relatively reasonably priced, and has coffee, food and free wifi.

Does anyone else find it strange that the new PGA Tour season is beginning before college football has crowned its national champion?

Fox Sports has an interesting golf preseason analysis of the top 20 in the golf rankings.

Its hard to believe that the Mercedes Benz Championship is upon us, and that the first regular event—the Sony Open—is next week.

So Rory pulls out of Tiger’s tournament in the final round and heads to Hawaii.

Does anyone else think this Rory v Tiger thing is a little weird?

The recent Mitchell report on the rampant use of steroids and human growth hormone in baseball has got me wondering about the extent of such things in golf. While the PGA Tour plans to start testing this next year, my guess is that it they won’t find anything. That’s because, as the Mitchell report says, steroid use is down and the largely undetectable HGH now is the tool of choice. Golfers aren’t dumb. If they’re going to use a performance-enhancing drug, they’ll use something on the cutting edge.

At the same time, I wonder if the public really cares. Fans have known with a certainty for years that baseball’s top stars were juiced. And yet the clubs keep setting attendance records. I haven’t talked to single person who is really outraged by the steroids report. Would the reaction be the same if it was found that golf’s top players were on HGH? I’d like to think people would be upset, but I’m not sure.

Any thoughts? Are you outraged by the baseball steroid scandal? Would finding out that Tiger is juiced change your opinion of him?

As of this early writing, Frank Licklighter leads the PGA Tour’s annual qualifying tournament—strangely known as Q “School.” What makes this tournament so compelling is that the participants are playing not for money, but for their very livelihood. The Top 30 finishers at Q School receive their “Tour Cards,” which qualifies them to play in PGA Tour events.

The “School” actually is a series of three eliminating tournaments. The top finishers in each of the first two rounds go on to the next. Those who fail to make the cut must return to the mini-tours, or whatever they were doing before trying out.

The third stage consists of SIX rounds of golf. Players who finish outside the top 30 get either full or conditional status on the Nationwide Tour.

It’s an event full of drama and often can be worth watching.

It’s on the Golf Channel:

Saturday 12/1 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET
Saturday 12/1 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM ET
Sunday 12/2 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET
Sunday 12/2 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM ET
Monday 12/3 12:30 PM - 4:00 PM ET
Monday 12/3 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM ET

Jack Nicklaus, who at this writing still holds the title of Greatest Golfer Ever, advises kids not to focus on just one sport:

“You see kids specialize in golf. I think that is idiotic,” he said. “To play all the sports is great. I played everything. My dad played everything. Golf to me was just another sport until I was about 19. When I won the National Amateur at 19, I finally said, ‘Hmm, I must be a little better than I think I am.’ It was just a game - still is a game.”

His advice to young golfers?

“I think kids should be playing everything, doing everything,” he said. “Eventually, if you want to specialize in something, that’s fine. But go out and enjoy, and be happy to be able to play other things.”

I think its going to be interesting to see whether the current generation of young golf stars—especially those who have been focusing on the game since a relatively young age—will show the same kind of longevity as Nicklaus. I’ve long thought that Tiger would face this issue. Nicklas was very competitive into his 40s, but he didn’t play a full round of competitive golf until he was in his teens. In that sense, Tiger (and others) have a six to ten year head start on Nicklaus.

Seve Ballesteros perhaps is the poster child for this. He turned pro at 16, and won the last of his five majors at age 31. He was a physical and mental wreck by 40.

Tiger is such a freak of nature, though, that this probablky doesn’t apply to him. But others with lesser physical skills trying to follow in his footsteps may run into trouble.