ON TIGER'S TRAIL EARLY.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

Another PGA Tour season. Another dominating year by Tiger Woods?

Perhaps. But this year, the man who has won eight majors and five Player of the Year awards in his six full seasons on tour is giving his opposition a running start. And the best of them from 2002 produced a blistering debut in the tour's 2003 debut.

Last week's Mercedes Championships, open only to 2002 tour winners, produced 135 of a possible 144 sub-par rounds from a field of 36 golfers at Kapalua's par-73 Plantation Course on Maui, where the tournament average was 69.14.

By the time reigning British Open champion Ernie Els claimed the $1 million first-place check by eight strokes, event records were broken for 18, 36, 54 and 72 holes - the latter three by Els, whose 31-under-par finish is also best in tour history for a four-round tournament and within five strokes of the tour record for a five-round event.

Els might have challenged that best-ever 36-under-par tournament total as well but for a pair of double bogeys - his only blemishes during a tournament in which he was 35 under par for his other 70 holes.

Did he wish he could have been competing against Woods, the 27-year-old, 34-time tour winner who is recovering from minor knee surgery and not expected to rejoin the tour until the Buick Open Feb. 13-16 at Torrey Pines?

``No,'' Els said with a laugh after his victory. ``He can take another month off.''

Els was one of many to thrive at the Mercedes while the world's most dominant player recuperates and rests after a 2002 season in which he included the Masters and U.S. Open among his five tour victories, led the tour in scoring for a fourth consecutive year and earned a tour single-season record of $6,912,625.

K.J. Choi set a single-round tournament record of 11-under-par 62 at the Mercedes and eleven players finished at least 20 under par, including Rocco Mediate, who shared second place with Choi at 23 under.

Six seasons after Woods dramatically raised the tour standard for excellence with a record-shattering Masters victory in his first full season, the tour appears to be rising with the bar.

``This golf course, it's not easy, it really isn't,'' said Mediate, who called Els' performance shocking. ``If you start mis-hitting shots, you're not shooting (low) scores here. For us to come out as a tour, as 36 guys that play out here, play this good of golf, that means we as a whole are getting a lot better.''

--Next: Els, who concluded his 2002 season with an eight-stroke victory in the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa, opened his bid for a third consecutive victory Thursday in the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Oahu, Hawaii.

Area tour players David Berganio Jr. of Sylmar and Jason Gore and Bob Burns of Valencia also are entered - Gore returning to the PGA Tour full-time this year thanks to a top-15 finish on last year's Buy.com Tour (now Nationwide Tour), where he won twice.

Burns, who won the 1998 Buy.com Tour Championship and was second in the 2001 PGA Tour Q School, posted his first PGA Tour victory at the Disney Golf Classic last year to qualify for last week's Mercedes Championships, where he finished 33rd. Berganio had his best tour finish last year at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, finishing second after a playoff with Phil Mickelson.

--Senior skins: Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Hale Irwin will compete in the opening event of the 2003 Champions Tour (formerly Senior PGA Tour), the ConAgra Senior Skins Game on Super Bowl weekend. The event will be played Jan. 25 at Wailea Golf Club's Championship Gold Course and televised by ABC on Jan. 25 and 26.

--Names in the game: Bruce Martin, head professional at Verdugo Hills GC, will conduct free golf clinics each Thursday in February. Martin called the clinics Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27 ``a pre-spring tuneup'' and said there would be no cost associated with the series, which is scheduled to start weekly at 10 a.m. on the driving range of the Tujunga par-3 course. Information: [phone]. ...

Woodland Hills CC will host the first of three workshops the North Hollywood-based Southern California Golf Association has scheduled for January, February and March. The Woodland Hills instruction will be Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Workshops also will be held at Newport Beach CC (Feb. 26) and Desert Princess CC (March 27). Entry fee is $30 for SCGA members or $40 for nonmembers, that fee covering the cost of breakfast, lunch and a rule book. Only 75 entries will be accepted at each workshop. Information: [phone].

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