Happy New Year

A new year and the opening tournament on the PGA Tour, the Mercedes-Benz Championship has already been run and won. Swede Daniel Chopra continued his good form taking out the Mercedes-Benz Championship. I had a chance to see Daniel this summer in the Australian Masters, where of course he lost the playoff to Aussie Aaron Baddeley. This time however Daniel Chopra came out on top in a playoff, defeating one of the hot players from last season, Steve Stricker.

The season opener looked rather different this year with a distinct lack of Aussies, including of course three time champion Stuart Appelby. Only the winners from the previous season are invited to play and although 2007 was a good year for the Aussies it only resulted in two winners, Adam Scott and Aaron Baddeley. We had a lot of round three leaders last year. Hopefully 2008 will see a a few more fall over the line.

I'm looking forward to 2008, I think the Aussies will continue to punch above their weight. After his win in the Australian PGA at Coolum I'm hoping Peter Lonard will be spurred on to have a great year. It will also be interesting to see how the two Aussie young guns Nick Flanagan and Jason Day go in their first season in the big time.