Sonartec Golf won for the 14th time in 2003 at the Golf Nippon Series JT Cup on the Japan Golf Tour. Winner Tetsuji Hiratsuka used the newly released NP-99 fairway wood model in a 3- and 5-wood. For more information on the NP-99, visit www.sonartec.com. ...

UPRIGHT Golf announces that Integra Golf is the most recent etailer to offer 'deBENDable golf' products. ...

Dunlop Golf will introduce its new Redneck Putters, designed by Rick Gray, on January 1. ...

The Tribute to a Legend program brings NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett and four-time Masters Tournament golf champion Arnold Palmer together during the 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup season as the No. 88 UPS/Arnold Palmer: Tribute to a Legend Ford Taurus. ...

Tickets for next year's Curtis Cup, to be played at Formby Golf Club June 12-13, are now on sale and, for the first time, members of the public will be able to purchase tickets online at lgu.org. ...

Closed since June 2003 for needed repairs, Pinehurst No. 3 reopened the day after Thanksgiving for limited play through the spring. Guests and members will immediately notice improved greens on all holes. ...

Dunlop announces that its LoCo driver has received a Birdie rating from PGATour.com and Golfweb on their list of 2003's best golf equipment. ...

Camp Creek Golf Club, the Tom Fazio layout along Northwest Florida's Gulf Coast, is hosting the Southeastern Junior Golf Tour's 2003 Tournament of Champions on December 13-14. ...

Lochmere Golf Club in Cary, N.C., which is owned and operated by ClubCorp, announces that Steve Ostroff has been named Operations Manager. ...

The ShopRite LPGA Classic and its title sponsor, Wakefern Food Corporation, have presented a record $1,460,000 in proceeds from the 2003 tournament to 44 beneficiaries. ...

Shore Gate Golf Club, in Cape May County, N.J., is named by Golf Digest as one of the top 10 "Best New Upscale Public Courses" in America for 2003. ...

Level Par Media plans to publish a magazine, Georgia Junior Golfer, for the Georgia Junior Golf Foundation. The magazine will be distributed in the spring of 2004 and will be made available to junior golfers throughout the state. ...

Dmgolf.com announces the addition of the new Tour + Equalizer irons available in 3-PW. Dmgolf.com is now pre-booking orders for these irons due to arrive in mid-January.

Let's see a show of hands: How many of you thought Vijay Singh would be the PGA Tour's Player of the Year?

Yeah, right.

And you in the back, raise your hand, too. You're one of those guys who wants anybody but the frontrunner to win. You don't like the Yankees and in years past have hated the Lakers, the Cowboys, the Celtics, the Canadiens, UCLA, Notre Dame and that high school team from across town with the snotty little point guard who dropped 30 points on your son to win the conference championship.

When all the divots had settled on Monday, Woods had won his sixth player of the year award. Since the tour does not release the vote totals, we don't know whether the 200-plus players who cast ballots made it a close race or whether it was a decisive win for the world's No. 1 player.

In hindsight, Woods winning player of the year was a pretty easy call. He won five times, two of which were World Golf Championship events, to Singh's four. And as good as all the tournaments on the tour are, Singh's victories in the Phoenix Open, Byron Nelson Championship, John Deere Classic and Funai Classic could not match Woods' titles in the Buick Invitational, Accenture Match Play, Bay Hill, Western Open and American Express.

The only things Singh did better than Woods were win more money and finish better in three of the four majors. And those things aren't shabby.

But it took Singh 27 tournaments to Woods' 18 for him to win the money title, and that wasn't decided until the season-ending Tour Championship.

Although he placed better than Woods in all but the British Open, Singh did not win one of the majors. A victory in one of the game's majors would have made Singh's point much more convincingly than winning the money title.

All of this is not to belittle Singh's season. It was his best year by far, and he won at the start, middle and end of the season. He just did not do enough to clearly distinguish himself as the tour's best player this year. And when you're trying to dethrone someone, you've got to better him decisively.

How Swede It Is

At the other end of the game's spectrum is the tour's Qualifying School, which wrapped up its sixth and final round on Monday.

For the first time in its 38-year history, a European player, Sweden's Mathias Gronberg, took medalist honors, finishing with a 20-under-par score at Orange County National.

Gronberg, a 33-year-old with four European Tour victories, including the 2003 Italian Open, already has more than made himself at home in the U.S. His wife, Tara, is American, and the Gronbergs have two houses, one in New Jersey and another in Florida.

Sporting a New York Yankees cap during Q-School, Gronberg rallied on the final day to clip Danny Ellis by two shots as the event's medalist and earn the $50,000 first prize. Gronberg donated $10,000 of that purse to cancer research.

Gronberg joins a growing list of international players who are choosing to play in the U.S. At this year's Q-School, Asian star Arjun Atwal joined such players as South Africa's Tjaart Van der Walt and Deane Pappas, Korea's Kevin Na, New Zealand's Grant Waite and Japan's Hirofumi Miyase all earned their playing cards.

The international prize, however, has to go to Daniel Chopra, who lists Sweden as his country of birth, but grew up in India. Chopra, born to a Swedish mother and Indian father, has played on the European Tour and won on the Asian Tour.

Chopra, who missed by $1,164 of earning his tour card off the Nationwide Tour's earnings list in 2003, also is an avid Star Trek fan. He claims to be the first person to hit a golf ball off the Great Wall of China, which he accomplished in 1995.

Uh, beam me up, Scottie.