Welcome back PGA Tour season, you have been missed.
It seems an eternity since Billy Horschel was bounding towards that US$10 million (Dh36.7m) jackpot at the Tour Championship in those long-forgotten mid-September days.
The 2013/14 campaign is merely an afterthought. Golf even squeezed in a whole Ryder Cup since.
Those suffering withdrawal symptoms can take heart: a fresh season is upon us.
The Frys.com Open tees up for the 2014/15 PGA Tour on Thursday, marking the start of the circuit’s second wraparound rota.
Beginning in new surroundings in Napa, California, it draws to a close that yawning period between past and present, which lasted all of three-and-a-half weeks.
With just 25 days since last season wrapped, some condemnation is valid, for the inaugural revamp did not exactly inspire.
At last year’s Frys event, its highest-ranked player was Hideki Matsuyama, then world No 30 and a new member of the US tour.
Fast forward through to the FedEx Cup play-offs, and prominent players protested about the schedule.
With justification, too: fatigue and frustration were blatant by-products.
The season is already too long and a circuit that straddles the New Year has a knock-on effect later in the calendar. Take the Wells Fargo, traditionally a well-stocked tournament, now significantly poorer for its position immediately following the WGC-Cadillac and the Players Championship.
There are some positives in the revised format. Thirty-eight of 50 graduates from the Web.com Tour play this week, when emergent players usually struggle for starts.
All six “Falls Series” tournaments have full FedEx Cup points and therefore help determine the top 30 players to qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship.
Last season, three of the top five at Frys made the finale, while 25 players who surfaced at least once in the autumnal run resurfaced at East Lake. It can be an important period.
Frys thrust Jimmy Walker, its 2013 champion, into the limelight, carried him to the play-offs and into the Ryder Cup.
This year, it provides Australian Jarrod Lyle, battling back after a fight against Leukaemia, a first PGA Tour start since 2012.
It has added value, too, with Matt Kuchar, Hunter Mahan, Lee Westwood and Patrick Reed – all recent Ryder Cup participants – playing.
The PGA Tour is back.
Perhaps it is time to embrace the wraparound.
jmcauley@thenational.ae
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