Amid all the changes in store for the US PGA Tour this year, expect one thing to stay the same: Tiger Woods will again reign supreme.
The season starting with the Mercedes-Benz Championships at Kapalua, Hawaii, on Thursday is being touted by US tour officials as a "new era" in golf.
The revamped schedule includes the 33-week FedEx Cup season, in which players earn points to make it into the PGA Tour playoffs for the FedEx Cup.
Those four tournaments, ending with the Tour Championship in September, are designed to cap a streamlined season in dramatic style.
"It's interesting, it really is," Woods said of the new system. "It's so different that we've never experienced anything like this before."
"It's weird in the sense that the points system determines the top 30 but the money list determines whether you keep your card or not. I don't know, it'll be very interesting to see the two dynamics there," he said.
Also in the mix will be the US$35 million in bonus money awarded at the conclusion of the playoffs, including a whopping US$10 million to the FedEx Cup champion.
Whatever fervor is whipped up by the big money finale, Woods himself promises to remain golf's most compelling story.
The game's undisputed heavyweight champion closed last year with eight victories and three runner-up finishes in his final 11 stroke-play events, all in the wake of his father's death in May.
When he launches his campaign at the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, California, on Jan. 25, Woods will be going for a seventh US tour victory in as many starts.
In April, he will arrive at Augusta National seeking the third leg of the "Tiger Slam" at the Masters, having won the final two major championships of last year, the British Open and US PGA Championship.
While Woods rides the crest of a wave into the new season, many of those who would seek to challenge him will be hoping for a fresh start this year.
Phil Mickelson, who won his third straight major title at last year's Masters, suffered one of the worst meltdowns in major championship history at the US Open, where he had the tournament in hand before a double-bogey at the final hole that handed the victory to Australian Geoff Ogilvy.
Mickelson was barely a blip on golf's radar the rest of the year, while Ogilvy, despite his increased confidence, was under no illusions as to just how hard it is to challenge Woods.
"You never play well when he's there, because you try too hard to shoot a score," Ogilvy noted last month after Woods won the Target World Challenge.
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