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Driving In The New Year

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By MICK ELLIOTT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 3, 2008

Updated: 01/03/2008 12:44 am

TAMPA - It was easy to overlook, what with all the holiday cheer and football going on, but anyone paying particularly close attention this week when the clock struck midnight and New Year's Day arrived may have noticed that fresh-faced little guy in a diaper and the 2008 sash across his chest was dragging a pitching wedge.

That's the PGA Tour for you. No sport leaps into a new calendar like men's professional golf. After all, when you've got a season that lasts 53 weeks a year, there isn't much time for sitting around giving fans a break.

So today in Kapalua, Hawaii, another PGA Tour year gets under way with the annual Mercedes-Benz Championship bringing 2007's tournament winners together. Well, at least some of them.

Headliners Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are among a handful of last year's winners who are content sitting on their laurels for a few more weeks.

Nevertheless, a winners-only field that includes defending champion Vijay Singh gets the season started by competing for a $1.1 million winner's check and keys to a 2008 Mercedes CL550.

That means the PGA Tour season has arrived.

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