Season opener

January has passed and we are well on our way to the year in golf. I can breathe again.

I can find reprieve from the endless array of reality television shows by turning to The Golf Channel where the week's latest event light up my boob tube. All around the world - in Hawaii, Thailand, and even in the Middle East - the game's best professionals are warming up to what is expected to be as exciting a year in golf as there has ever been.

There is certainly no lack of pretenders to the throne. Anthony Kim sashays into every tournament as the next, great Asian hope. Camillo Villegas is the hispanic world's answer to Lee Trevino, but you'll have to swap the paunch and endless jokes with flowing locks of amber, and a body that's tight as a drum. And there's Sergio, good 'ol Sergio. Will he ever break the duck and win a Major? This looks to be the year.

The only question left to be asked is when will woods join the fray? As a "grand, old" man of 33, his is the prize that the former three would love to win. Second is nothing.

As for the rest of golf's best. It appears that Phil is struggling to return from the Christmas festivities, Vijay is nursing an injured elbow, Adam Scott has more luck dating celebrities than making putts, and Ernie Els is still trying to find the form that has made his a game to emulate among the young. 

There are games on a crescendo, and those looking for a rekindling. There are stars burning oh so bright, and those waning in the background. But these are what professional golf, and the chronological toil of time have to offer as each year moves to the next. The era's best players give way to the next wave of upstarts, and while the flash-in-the-pans fade and die away, those with real talent, and a will to belong, continue to enforce the irresistible attraction of the game.

The stage is set, and the players are preened. Now we just wait for the action to unravel, while we sit back in our sofas, uncork our favourite drink, and enjoy.

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