Any time there is a draft in professional sports, hope is in the air. Fans of every team see only the possibilities, and rarely the pitfalls. Having said that, I proclaim my fantasy golf team for 2008 one of the serious contenders for the big prize as overall champions as well as a threat in major tournaments. If you do not participate in a fantasy league, I urge you to start one. It gives you a rooting interest every week of the season and draft day alone is worth the price of admission.

Before I tell you who makes up my team, let me give you the basics of the fantasy league. The name of every participant goes into a hat from which the draft order for the first round is drawn. The draft order is reversed for even numbered rounds. Each participant gets 6 selections for his/her team. Winners are determined by prize money earned in any PGA Tour, Champions Tour or LPGA event. Prize pool payouts of 36%, 15% and 9% go to the top 3 teams for the entire golf season. Additional payouts of 8% are made to the top team for each of the 4 majors & the Players Championship. The fly in the ointment, however, is that the commissioner pre-determines which of the top earners are divided into pieces. This year, Woods was cut into 4ths, Mickelson & Singh were cut into 3rds and Furyk, Stricker, Sabbatini, Choi, Scott, Els & Toms were cut in half.

The problem with taking a fraction of any of those top guys is that unless you get more than one part of the same guy, it’s very hard to win any of the Majors prizes, which totals to 40% of the prize pool. On the other hand, it’s hard to turn down ¼ of Woods when you know that’s a guaranteed $2.5+ million. There were a total of 20 participants this year. I was drafting in the number 6 spot in rounds 1, 3 & 5 and in the number 15 spot in rounds 2, 4 & 6.

My team, in the order of selection: Justin Rose, half of Steve Stricker, the other half of Steve Stricker, Angel Cabrera, Brett Quigley and Suzann Pettersen.

Strong.

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