Every rookie has to play his first game, his first match, his first tournament somewhere. But in golf, there is a wide range of first-year players on the PGA Tour.
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Jerod Turner's victory at the Soboba Classic vaulted him up Nationwide Tour money list and helped clinch his PGA Tour card for 2010. He's making his first PGA Tour start this week at the Sony Open.
In other words, Rickie Fowler is not a rookie in the same way that Jerod Turner is a rookie. Nor is Jeev Milkha Singh, who is considered a rookie by the PGA Tour even though he has years of worldwide experience playing the European Tour.
Fowler and Turner make their "rookie" debuts Thursday at the Sony Open in Hawaii, but Fowler, 21, tees it up having played in eight PGA Tour events, even losing one in a playoff. (Singh has played in numerous major championships.)
Turner, 34, meanwhile, will play in a PGA Tour event for the first time in his life.
"I look at it like, a 7-iron is a 7-iron, whether it's on the PGA Tour or on the mini-tour," Turner said. "But I'm not going to lie to you. It's different out here."
Turner had just completed a practice round this week at Waialae Country Club and marveled at the scenery, the temperatures and the experience he is about to undertake.
After years of bouncing around the bush leagues, he has finally made it to the big time. And it wasn't all that long ago he was saying to his wife that there would come a time when he would have to look into other career options.
"I told her if I didn't make to where I wanted to make it by [age] 35, I'd quit," Turner said. "I guess I'm a late bloomer."
Unlike Fowler, who begins his PGA Tour career with a ton of hype after an outstanding college career and a quick burst of success last year after turning pro, Turner walks onto the big stage as a relative unknown.
After playing junior college golf, Turner, who is from Fort Worth, Texas, waited another five years to turn pro in 2000. Even then, he had little success, bouncing around various mini-tours and trying to scratch out a living. "You basically have to finish in the top 6 to make any money," he said.
In 2008, Turner went to the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament for just the second time and made it to the final stage, where he played poorly and garnered only conditional status on the Nationwide Tour.
He didn't get into his first event until August. And after missing four of his first five cuts, Turner won in his seventh tournament, the Soboba Classic. That was worth $180,000. Although he played in just 10 events, Turner finished 15th on the money list to earn his PGA Tour card for this year.
Chat with the expert
ESPN.com golf writer Bob Harig chatted with you, the readers, this week. Read what he had to say. Transcript
"Do I have any goals?" Turner said. "My goals are just to keep doing what I was doing toward the end of last year. I don't have any goals of doing this or doing that; I just want to keep the ball rolling as much as I can from last year."
Turner is not alone in playing his first PGA Tour event this week. Troy Merritt, 25, who was the medalist at Q-school; Brian Stuard, 27, who tied for 19th at Q-school; and Blake Adams, 34, who finished third on the Nationwide money list, find themselves in the same situation.
"You never know what to expect," said Stuard, who played the last two years on the Nationwide Tour and finished 26th on the money list in 2009 -- he missed his card by less than $4,000 and had to earn it through Q-school. "I've never played out here, but I'm ready to give it a shot."
The important thing for any rookie is to have at least modest success early. The number of starts players get is based first on where they finished at Q-school (Merritt, as medalist, is fully exempt) or on the Nationwide Tour.
But there is a "reshuffle" after the Phoenix Open, meaning those who win the most money early will get more playing opportunities.
"That's the pressure I have now," Turner said. "Before, I needed to earn money to have money. Now I need to earn it so I can play."
Strong words
Butch Harmon said what many undoubtedly are thinking: Tiger Woods needs to emerge and say something.
It has now been nearly five weeks since Woods' statement that he would take an indefinite leave from the game, with no sign of golf's No. 1 player and no further word from him or any of his people.
Harmon, whose most prominent client is Phil Mickelson, was in the U.K. to do commentary for Sky Sports on the season-opening SBS Championship.
"The golfing public would like to see Tiger Woods do a press conference," Harmon said. "To stand there in front of everybody, take his medicine, be humble, be embarrassed, be humiliated and answer the questions. But where the hell is he? We could find Osama bin Laden easier than we can find Tiger Woods. How long can you spend on a yacht in the middle of the ocean?"
Woods employed Harmon through the 2002 season and won eight of his major championships on the instructor's watch. Harmon said last week that he expected the golfer to return sometime in March because he could not envision him skipping a major championship.
"Will he play before the Masters? I think that's the biggest question," Harmon said. "I happen to think he will. I have nothing to base that on other than the fact that I know how much he loves the game, and that life."
Harig's head-scratcher of the week
The golf season has just started, and already there is qualifying for one of the game's major championships. Three spots in the Open Championship at St. Andrews -- which won't be contested for another six months -- are on the line Thursday and Friday in Australia at the first of five International Final Qualifying tournaments put in place by the R&A several years ago.
Seems a bit early, doesn't it?
This week's tournaments
So where are the world's best golfers teeing it up this week?
• PGA Tour: Sony Open, Jan. 14-17, Waialae Country Club, Honolulu, Hawaii
• European Tour: Joburg Open, Jan. 14-17, Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club, Johannesburg, South Africa
• The Open Championship International Qualifying, Jan. 14-15, Kingston Heath, Australia
The Open used to have the best qualifying process. If you did not play your way into the field through one of several exemption categories (such as money-list finishes or world rankings), there was always local final qualifying on the weekend before the event at a nearby links course. How better to determine the final entrants than to put them through a similar experience?
But the R&A gave in to the professional tour players who were inconvenienced by such an arrangement -- especially those who are not from Great Britain. For an international player, it's a long way to travel for 36 holes of golf and just the chance of getting into the big tournament.
So it set up these international qualifiers around the world. Next week there's another one in South Africa. An Asian event is to be determined. There will be a U.S. qualifier in May -- before the U.S. Open even has sectional qualifying! And then a U.K. qualifier in June.
Logistically, this is probably the way to go. (It should be noted that the U.S. Open has set up a similar system in which a sectional qualifier is staged in Europe.)
Still, a qualifier for the Open Championship in January? In Australia?
It just doesn't seem right.