There must be a boatload of professional golfers spending time with their families this week, for fields are light across the board, on the PGA, European and Sunshine Tours.  Meanwhile, the Ladies European Tour offers another interesting collection of international players – but this time minus the greatness of Kingston Heath.  All told, likely not a week to measure up to the last two…but you never know.

PGA Tour:  AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am – Pebble Beach, CA

The PGA Tour begins the final leg of its California swing with the 68th edition of the former Bing Crosby Pro-Am, a storied event played six times at San Diego’s Rancho Santa Fe CC before moving to the splendid Monterey Peninsula immediately after World War II.  The event has lost a bit of luster over the last decade, due mostly to so many top professionals balking at Pebble Beach’s sometimes-bumpy greens and, perhaps more significantly, the prospect of playing three rounds with amateur partners.  Still, few are the tournaments worldwide that can match this one for venue and luster, with grand old Pebble Beach remaining the most spectacular stage of any regular (read non-Major) event in golf, Spyglass Hill still capable of scaring the world’s best (particularly in the wind), and Poppy Hills…  Well, lets just say that the old Monterey Peninsula CC layout (the Crosby’s third course from 1947-1968) was no world beater either.  Regrettably, the ’08 field will once again be a lean one, with only Phil Mickelson (#2), Jim Furyk (#6), Padraig Harrington (#10) and Vijay Singh (#11) present from among the world’s top 25.  There is a bit of supplementary star power, however, as former Major champions like Justin Leonard, Tom Lehman and David Duval will compete, as will 52-year-old Greg Norman and, for the first time since injuring his ankle last autumn, Davis Love III.  Unfortunately for TV viewers, CBS will surely saturate Saturday’s broadcast with second-class celebrities straining to be funny, but the prospect of pro-only Sunday action playing itself out over Pebble Beach’s storied finishing holes still remains an uncommonly bright one.

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European PGA Tour: Emaar-MGF Indian Masters – Delhi, India

The British Raj may have lasted for nine decades but it has taken until this week for the E Tour to make its debut on Indian soil, the occasion being a brand new event co-sponsored with the Asian Tour, the Emaar-MGF Indian Masters.  Much pre-tournament P.R. buzz has centered around the prospect of one of India’s new generation of professionals winning and given the relative leanness of the field, such an occurrence really isn’t that much of a longshot.  World #4 Ernie Els – likely to be either utterly deflated or loaded for bear following his disappointing loss in Dubai – is by far the top-rated player in the field; indeed, he is the only world top 50 slated to appear.  The homestanding Indian contingent is led by World #85 Jyoti Randhawa and #91 Jeev Milkha Singh, as well as Arjun Atwal (the first Indian to win an E Tour event – the 2002 Singapore Open) and 25-year-old Shiv Kapur.  The host site, the 7,014-yard, par-71 Delhi GG dates back to the days of British influence, though its lushly vegetated layout was redesigned by Peter Thomson’s firm in 1977.  Though not overly long, its major emphasis on accuracy will make for a stark change from the open desert landscapes of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

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Sunshine Tour: Africa Open Golf Challenge – Port Alfred, South Africa

With at least two players in the field from 11 of Africa’s golfingest countries and little in the way of overseas stars present, this, the inaugural version of the Africa Open, will truly encompass the entirety of the continent’s professional golfers.  And with the majority of the South African stars that dominate the region being absent, the door is certainly open for a lesser-known winner.  The event will be staged over the Gary Player-designed Fish River Sun CC, a windblown 6,342-metre design carved through dense native bush, and sporting some dazzling views of the nearby Indian Ocean.  The layout’s most memorable hole, by far, is the 495-metre 3rd, a par 5 which sweeps left around a bend in the Old Woman’s River.  I wonder why they liked the name of the Fish River (which runs nearby) better…

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Ladies European Tour: ANZ Ladies Masters – Gold Coast, Australia

Fresh off her thrilling sudden-death triumph in the Australian Women’s Open, Karrie Webb looks fully prepared to defend her 2007 ANZ Ladies Masters title as the event returns to Queensland’s Royal Pines Resort for the 18th consecutive time.  Last year she defeated the young Korean star Ji-Yai Shin (also her victim last week at Kingston Heath), though at the time Webb’s stunning third-round 62 garnered more headline’s than the then-18-year-old Shin’s prodigious talent.  This week, with the Masters again representing the second leg of the LET’s two-event visit to Australia, the list of foreign entries is nearly a match with last week’s, with one major addition: the #17 player in the world, Japan’s 22-year-old Ai Miyazato.  With six prior wins on this golf course, Webb is unquestionably the favorite.  There are, however, plenty of talented youngsters around to give her a run for her money.  Wet conditions resulting from torrential rains this past weekend will certainly limit practice rounds and may, regrettably, be a weeklong factor.

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Champions Tour: Allianz Championship – Boca Raton, FL

England’s Mark James will defend his Allianz title as the Champions Tour returns from a one-week hiatus and arrives in Florida, taking up residence at Boca Raton’s 36-hole Broken Sound Club.  The Champions will play the Old course (talk about your misnomers), a 6,807-yard, par-72 track laid out by Joe Lee in 1976, and far more recently renovated by Gene Bates.  Typically “Floridian” in nature (i.e. flat and water-laden), it does bear the distinct charm of not being lined by wall-to-wall housing, something of a rarity in these parts.  Strictly speaking, water is present on roughly 15 holes,  but it’s only a serious hazard on perhaps nine, most notably at the difficult 568-yard 6th (which turns left around a lake) and the 453-yard 13th, whose green juts out dangerously onto a peninsula.  Mark James was 15-under-par for three rounds last year so barring a particularly strong breeze off the nearby Atlantic, scoring should be typically “Champions Low.”

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Tiger and Ernie in Dubai, Phil and four other top-15s in Phoenix.  It’s a divided world in week five as the elite are fairly evenly split between marquee events some 8,000 miles apart.  Meanwhile, in the similarly distant locale of Melbourne, an intriguing mix of players highlighted by several touted youngsters gather at the Australian Women’s Open.  Should be an interesting week.

PGA Tour: FBR Open – Phoenix, AZ

This, the former Phoenix Open, is one of the oldest events on the PGATour, its roots dating back to Ralph Guldahl’s five-shot victory in 1932’s inaugural playing at the Phoenix CC. For many years now, it has occupied a permanent schedule slot opposite America’s single biggest sporting day, Super Bowl Sunday, and with the football game itself actually being played in Phoenix this year, there is some concern that the golf tournament’s normally huge crowds might be diminished – but don’t count on it. This year’s event falls opposite the Dubai Desert Classic (which is not annually matched against the Super Bowl, and likely wouldn’t care if it was) yet perhaps because about half of the PGA Tour now resides in neighboring Scottsdale, the field will still be relatively strong. Nine of the world top 25 are scheduled to compete, led by Phil Mickelson (#2), Steve Stricker (#3), Rory Sabbatini (#9), Vijay Singh (#11) and Geoff Ogilvy (#13), as well as defending champion Aaron Baddeley (#17). A good part of the event’s draw is the Tom Weiskopf/Jay Morrish-designed TPC Scottsdale golf course, celebrated annually for the raucous crowds assembled at the stadium-like 162-yard 16th. But far beyond that over-the-top arena, this is one of the PGA Tour’s better modern venues, a course which, on firm desert soil, isn’t overpowering at 7,216 yards, but which provides several dramatic scoring opportunities in its closing stretch. The spotlight will shine brightest on the 16th – really just a short iron played to a well-trapped green – but much greater strategic excitement exists at the 558-yard 15th and 332-yard 17th, each offering the very real prospect of an eagle, but each also guarded closely by water. Barring odd weather conditions, expect low numbers this week; only three times in the course’s 21 years as host has the winner failed to break 270, with Steve Jones (258 in 1997) and Mark Calcavecchia (256 in 2001) managing to take things really low. One way or another, Phoenix generally delivers a good show.

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European PGA Tour: Dubai Desert Classic – Dubai, U.A.E.

It is quite remarkable to see how far both the game of golf and this trend-setting event have come within the desert emirate of Dubai, a place which would not, in even the slightest of ways, have looked like fertile golfing ground as recently as 25 years ago. But professional golf tours are magnetically drawn to affluent markets and, seeing the opportunity to do something truly groundbreaking, the E Tour made a bold move casting their lot here back in 1989. Today Dubai anchors the Tour’s three-week mid-winter swing through the Middle East (who could ever have foreseen that?) and has become one of golf’s least likely high-powered international addresses. To wit: the E Tour will end its 2009 season here with the world’s richest-ever tournament, the $10 million Dubai World Championship. So this year’s playing of the Desert Classic certainly represents its usual big doings, yet despite Tiger Woods’ presence, the field might actually be a shade weaker than that of the competing FBR Open in America. Of course, Woods, the event’s 2006 winner, shifts the spotlight by himself, but he will be joined by only one additional member of the world top 10, three-time Dubai champion Ernie Els (#5) who, like Tiger, enjoys a golf course development deal in the emirate. Present from among the top 25 will be Sergio Garcia (#12), defending champion Henrik Stenson (#15), Order of Merit leader Lee Westwood (#20), Ian Poulter (#21) and Niclas Fasth (#22). The event returns for the 17th time to the Emirates GC, a 7,301-yard, Karl Litten-designed track which over its 20-year lifespan has gone from a pioneering golfing oasis in a sea of sand (it was the first all-grass layout in the Gulf region) to the centerpiece of a sprawling, multi-course development. Scoring has traditionally been low here, and while few will confuse it with the Old Course for strategy, there frequently is a bit of drama at the 18th, a 564-yard dogleg-left played to a lake-fronted green.

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Sunshine Tour:  Nashua Masters – Wild Coast, South Africa

For a second consecutive week the Sunshine Tour will be playing without the great majority of its stars, for the Dubai Desert Classic is drawing not only players like Els, Schwartzel, Sterne and young Anton Haig but also two of the primary figures at last week’s Dimension Data Pro-Am, winner James Kante (in Dubai on a sponsor’s exemption) and James Kingston.  But the show must go on, and the 44th playing of the Nashua South African Masters returns it to the Wild Coast Sun CC near Port Edward, a flashy 1983 Robert Trent Jones Jr. design scenically routed over a wide array of coastal hills, bush and dunes.  In days of yore, Gary Player won the event 10 times (between 1960-79) and Mark McNulty five, with more recent champions including Ernie Els (1992), Justin Rose (2002) and Richard Sterne (2005).  Aside from a wide cast of native up-and-comers, this years field features notable warhorses Desvonde Botes, Des Terblanche and the venerable Tony Johnstone (winner in 1984 and '93), though for TV viewers, the biggest draw might well be the golf course, which may not rate among the younger Jones’s elite, but is certainly not dull.

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Ladies European Tour:  MFS Australian Women’s Open – Cheltenham, Australia

Lest there be any doubt as to the ability of a genuinely great course to spice up a championship, look no further than this week’s Australian Women’s Open, to be played over that venerable Sandbelt classic, Kingston Heath (course tour available at link below).  The Open is obviously the highlight of the Australian Ladies Tour but also serves as an enviable opener for the LET, which will round out its brief visit Down Under at the ANZ Ladies Masters next week.  But beyond  the splendid venue, the Open will offer a fascinating mix of international players headlined by legends Karrie Webb and Laura Davies (winner of last week’s New South Wales open warm-up), bolstered by top-5 2007 LET Order of Merit finishers Bettina Hauert (#2) and Gwladys Nocera (#3), and supplemented by two more Australian stars, 24-year-old Nikki Garrett and LPGA Tour veteran Lindsey Wright.  Perhaps most interesting, however, will be the appearance of three highly touted youngsters from divergent locales: Eighteen-year-old South African prodigy Ashleigh Simon, Japan’s 22-year-old Sakura Yokomine (2nd in the ’07 JLPGA Order of Merit) and Korea’s 19-year-old sensation Ji-Yai Shin, winner of an astonishing 10 of 21 starts on the ’07 KLPGA Tour.  Though a bit removed from the international media spotlight, this could be fun...

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It wasn’t so long ago that many considered the PGA Tour season to really begin at Doral; my, how times have changed.  The resurgence of the West Coast swing has breathed new life into the Tour’s January and February calendar, and this week all eyes will be focusing on San Diego, where the 2008 debuts of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson represents the modern version of “the real beginning” - though a solid E Tour field assembled in Qatar offers some entertaining prospects as well.

PGA Tour:  Buick Invitational – San Diego, CA

Media hype notwithstanding, there is a bonafide aura of excitement as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson prepare to make their 2008 debuts at the Buick Invitational – that is, assuming Mickelson is genuinely healthy after an extended respiratory problem that required antibiotics right through this past weekend.  And what better place for a potential battle between the world’s 1st and 2nd ranked players than an event which they have won a combined eight times between them?  Tiger, of course, is going for his fourth straight  Buick crown (the TV broadcast may remind us of this once or twice) but he’ll have to conquer more than just Mickelson to do it; with the U.S. Open being played over Torrey Pines’ South course in June, a  considerably stronger field is assembled here (presumably to draw some early clues as to the Open setup) than appeared at either the Sony Open or the Bob Hope.  Among these are nine of the world’s top 25 including Jim Furyk (#4), K.J. Choi (#7), Rory Sabbatini (#9), Vijay Singh (#11) and 2006 U.S. Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy (#13).  And then there is the matter of the golf courses – or rather the gigantic discrepancy between them.  For with the city of San Diego ultimately rejecting an expensive Rees Jones renovation of the North course following his controversial toughening of the South, the Buick is left to balance itself on layouts of hugely varied difficulty.  This will matter little on the weekend when play moves entirely to the South (slope 144), but on the weekdays, virtually all low scoring will take place on the North (slope 130), which makes for rather a one-sided Thursday leaderboard.  But for TV viewers (especially those in colder regions) the coastal Pacific views - plus a possible Tiger vs. Phil match up - make it all worth watching.

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European PGA Tour:  Commercialbank Qatar Masters – Doha, Qatar

The E Tour makes the second stop of its three week desert visit at the Doha GC, for the 11th playing of the Qatar Masters.  With Woods, Mickelson and Furyk all playing in San Diego, the field cannot quite match the Buick at the high end, but nine of the world's top 25 are scheduled to compete, led by 2002 winner Adam Scott (#8), Sergio Garcia (#12), 2006 winner Henrik Stenson (#15) and Luke Donald (#18), as well as the somewhat curious entry of Scott Verplank (#24), the lone recognizable American player in the field.  Also present is defending champion Retief Goosen (#28), who eagled the 72nd hole to beat Nick O’Hern by one here a year ago, but has largely been struggling since, logging only a single American or European top 10 (his round-of-16 loss at October’s World Match Play counting officially as a T9) since tying for 2nd at the '07 Masters.  The 7,388-yard, par-72 Doha course mirrors the flatness of its region and, like its handful of modern-era Middle Eastern brethren, features open desert once one wanders too far from the fairway.  Classic design this is not, but it's testing enough to have prevented recent winners like Goosen, Stenson and Ernie Els from going lower than 273, and 270 has only been breached twice, during seven-shot runaways by Paul Lawrie (1999) and Scott in 2002.

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Sunshine Tour:  Dimension Data Pro-Am – Sun City, South Africa

The Sunshine Tour visits Sun City’s Gary Player CC for the 13th playing of the Dimension Data Pro-Am, an event which enjoyed European Tour co-sanction in its mid-1990s infancy but which has since evolved into largely a local affair.  And this year that trend will continue with a vengeance, for notable foreigners are entirely absent, and leading South Africans like Goosen, Els, Immelman, Clark and Schwartzel are either playing elsewhere or taking the week off.  Even touted youngsters Louis Oosthuizen (the defending champion) and Anton Haig  have packed it off to Europe, leaving only the talented Richard Sterne (world #32) to carry the side - and he promptly withdrew.  Not many World Ranking points on the line then, but some young player will surely get a nice leg up in the Order of Merit…

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Champions:  Turtle Bay Championship – Kahuku, HI

Defending champion (and winner  of last week’s MasterCard Championship) Fred Funk leads the Champions Tour into the second half of their two-week, season-opening Hawaiian swing at the Turtle Bay Championship.  A year ago, Funk strung together rounds of 65-64-64 to run away and hide, his 193 total routing a group of five 2nd-place finishers (including Loren Roberts, Denis Watson and Tom Kite) by a stunning 11 shots.  Few in this band of semi-retired warriors will pass on two potentially lucrative weeks in Hawaii so the field will be predictably strong.  The golf course itself, a 1992 Arnold Palmer design, sits at the northernmost tip of Oahu, making it both scenic and frequently windblown.  Only the par-4 17th comes especially close to the ocean, however, leaving the water hazards which surround a large, central marsh as the layout’s primary hazard.  But as Funk proved in 2007, one can definitely go low here…

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