Most of the professional golfing world has put away the clubs until 2011, swinging the sticks at only the odd charity tournament or sponsor appearance. Most, but not all. For a select few, the next five days will comprise six of the most stressful rounds of golf in their lives.

Yes, Q School finals are upon us.

Here’s the deal. The players in this year’s field are competing for a PGA Tour card for 2011. And unlike the Tour players who were trying to remain in the top 125 a few weeks back, the guys here are not all that unlike you and me, with the key difference being that they play golf orders of magnitude better than we do. But many aren’t pros in the private-jets-and-luxury-meals sense of the term; they’re scrapping to put together a career in golf. And this is their moment.

Here’s how it works. The top 25 and ties get PGA Tour cards for next year. Boom, there you go, life loses a bit of stress for a year. The next 50 players plus ties after the top 25 earn Nationwide Tour cards for 2011, allowing them to angle their way up to the big leagues in 2012. After that? No luck.

The drama, of course, is intense; you’re advised to read Feinstein’s Tales from Q School if you want to learn more about the process. For now, though, you may want to follow a few of these fellows’ progress:

Danny Lee: Quite a few people, including
us, heralded Lee, pictured at right, as part of the next wave of golf superstars that
included Rory McIlroy and Ryo Ishikawa. It hasn’t quite worked out that
way so far. 

Ty Tryon: The onetime phenom is trying to play his way back onto the big stage, and he’s close, so close. Read more about his progress here. 

Erik Compton: A two-time heart transplant patient, he’s got the finest story hands-down of any competitor, and he’s got a solid game, too. More on him here.

Billy Hurley: A former Walker Cup member, Hurley took time off to serve in the Navy and is now trying to kick off his golf career. Hey, it worked okay for David Robinson in basketball.

Lee Janzen: He’s a two-time U.S. Open winner back in Q School. Think he wants back in the game just a little bit?

Every golfer in Q School has his own cheering section, small though it may be. And with any luck, that golfer can get himself a whole new raft of fans over the course of the weekend.

Q School tees off on Wednesday at Orange County National in Orlando. We’ll keep you posted.

Stunt marketing time! To help celebrate the debut of its new Diablo Octane Driver, Callaway pressed Stuart Appleby into service against a shiny 550-hp Lamborghini Gallardo. The challenge: Could Appleby’s Octane-enhanced drive outdistance the Lamborghini over 275 yards? Let’s find out:

Callaway and Lamborghini developed the Forged Composite used in the club’s crown. Both car and club are on sale right now, though one is slightly cheaper than the other. Slightly.

Ready to feel old?!??! Okay, let’s do it together, because the kid that just won the European Tour’s Rookie of the Year award was born in 1993! That was the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidential term! That was when Whitney Houston was still sane and could sing well! That was when Joe Carter hit the World Series clinching home run and was jumping around the bases like a mad man!

Okay, I’l'l settle down, but Matteo Manassero is 17 and won the award for best newcomer on the European Tour. He became the youngest player to ever win an event back in October at the Castello Masters, and is the youngest player to ever make the cut at the Masters.

On top of that, he finished 31st on the Order of Merit, and joins names like Sergio Garcia and Nick Faldo, who have won the award before.

So, yes, like that nagging knee problem and bad back at the office isn’t enough to make you feel the years, this kid can’t even vote and made nearly $2 million this year on the European Tour.

With Martin Kaymer winning the Race to Dubai at 25, and Mannassero winning the Rookie of the Year award, who said golf isn’t a young man’s sport?

So you remember a couple weeks back, when Tiger Woods told the world how he likes to watch television with his kids? Here’s hoping they’re not all crowded around the TV when this promo comes on:

Huh. That storyline seems familiar somehow, but I can’t quite place it. Let’s all watch the episode Wednesday night and see if it jogs any memories.

A lot was made on Monday when Martin Kaymer, recent recipient of the Race to Dubai, decided not to play in this week’s Chevron World Challenge, an event put on by the one and only Tiger Woods. People assumed that the 25-year-old German was probably not playing because he had just banked an incredible amount of money, or because he just didn’t feel like competing again in an event with some of the bigger names in the game.

But that wasn’t the case. Kaymer decided not to play because he wanted to caddie for his girlfriend, who is playing in Ladies European Tour Pre-Qualifying. Yep, Kaymer’s girlfriend, Allison Micheletti, is attempting to get through pre-qualifying as an amateur, and while the American girlfriend isn’t playing so well, it is a nice story to have the third-ranked golfer in the world on the bag.

It was reported by English golfer Rebecca Hudson, who Tweeted on Tuesday, "Martin Kaymer is caddying for his girlfriend at Pre Q. Hope he gets the yardages ok!!"

Micheletti’s first round was a nasty 89, but she is playing a lot better in her second round, thanks to Kaymer being around to tote the bag.

Maybe the coolest part of this story is Kaymer skipping out on easy money to help out a person he obviously has feelings for. While it would have been a tough flight from Dubai to California (around 17 hours), it is still worth it when the check is guaranteed. Kaymer decided against it, and will hopefully change Micheletti’s fortune at the La Manga Course.

Update: Micheletti finished 13 shots better with Kaymer on the bag, finishing with a 76 on Tuesday compared to her Monday 89. 

visor tip Golf 365 

There was a time when the touch of Tiger Woods was finer than Midas, bringing wave upon wave of profit and adulation to whatever product or service bore his name.

But all that changed a year ago, and nowhere is the change more visibly apparent than in Dubai, where Woods had planned to build his first golf course. "Had" being the key word there. As The Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan tells us, all is not right in Dubai for Mr. Woods: 

Drive for a mile over the speed bumps, past an abandoned security hut, until Tarmac becomes gravel and then another mile until the gravel becomes sand, and there it is: The Tiger Woods Dubai. The first golf course in world designed by the man many consider, or at least considered, the greatest ever to play the game.

Read the three-year-old press releases and gasp at the numbers. Fifty-five million square feet. Two hundred "residences" – £7m villas, £10m mansions and "palaces". A boutique hotel, a spa and a Michelin-starred restaurant. And then the centrepiece: the Al Ruwaya Golf Club. Eleven thousand imported trees; 22m cubic meters of earth to be moved; and 3m square feet of water. An 18-hole masterpiece hewn from the sand. All hail the winner of "best golf development" at the 2008 Arabian Properties Awards. Estimated total cost on completion: $1.1 [billion].

Now gasp at the tumbleweed reality on the morning of 27 November 2010, the first anniversary of the car crash that led to the world’s richest and most famous athlete falling to earth. The Tiger Woods Dubai: a dust-bowl, an empty car park, an "Arabian palace" as real as a Hollywood film set.

To be fair, The Tiger Woods Dubai plan fell victim to the same economic woes that sank most of the rest of Dubai, and even in Woods’ boom times, it wasn’t exactly on the fast track. Bob Smiley, author of "Follow The Roar," described taking almost the exact same trip in 2008, when Woods was still at the zenith of his popularity.

Even so, the urgency of a decision is now upon Woods and the developers. As Donegan notes, it takes a million gallons of water a month just to sustain the vegetation at the site. There is serious talk of just giving up and returning the site to nature. 

Donegan uses the failed development as a metaphor, an example of how not even Woods could hold back the tides of economic woe. He suggests that just as it’s probably time to cut ties with Dubai, it’s time for Tiger to reconsider all elements of his life and his relationships … including those that got him into this Dubai mess in the first place.

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley may or may not have been a golfer, but he striped it right down the middle with "Ozymandias," a poem about a wrecked statue of King Ozymandias; its final lines just seem appropriate, somehow:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Devil Ball. We make you laugh, we make you furious, we even give you a little culture. That’s a full-service golf blog, friends. And yes, you will be tested on this material.

The European Tour has announced its 2011 schedule, and sweet mother of mercy, all those cats who decided they wanted to stick with that tour instead of the PGA better get ready for some serious plane time.

The 2011 European Tour — which begins in December, never mind the calendar — will feature an astonishing 50 events, up two from this year. It begins in South Africa and ends in Dubai next December. Along the way, the European Tour will stop in Sicily at my new favorite-named club (Donnafugata Golf Resort), in Malaysia and in the Persian Gulf. With the leading South African and Gulf swings, the European Tour won’t actually reach Europe until late March. 

Still up in the air: a location for the Scottish Open, which will be held this summer, and the long-term fate of Dubai as a site for the season-ending championship. Significantly, however, George O’Grady, head of the European Tour, has said he would like to bring back the British  Masters, in limbo since 2008, and the English Open, which hasn’t been played since 2002. 

Yes, a schedule that envelops literally half the globe is surely likely to keep Rory McIlroy from feeling homesick.

In four weeks, Martin Kaymer will turn 26. Young for any sport not named women’s tennis, Kaymer has put together a pretty respectable resume for himself since turning pro in 2005.

Kaymer has shot 59 in a professional event, won seven European Tour events, been a member of a winning Ryder Cup team, moved up to third in the world rankings, won a major championship and, on Sunday, took home the Race to Dubai, the award given to the top European Tour member.

Along with that, Kaymer became the first European to win three successive tournaments since Nick Faldo did so in 1989, and just this season, went from "solid golfer that is on a short-list to win big events" to "greatest young player since Tiger Woods."

Yep, as us golf writers spent months and months rambling on about Rory McIlroy, Ryo Ishikawa, Anthony Kim and Rickie Fowler, Kaymer was going about his business. He finished in the top-eight in the last three majors in 2010 after missing the cut at the Masters, and his win at the PGA Championship really solidified his position.

Could Kaymer get to number one in the world at some point next season? Absolutely, he has all the tools to move there, and has played well enough in the past to keep the momentum going. He led the European Tour in stroke average this year, along with finishing in the top-35 in all the major statistical categories.

So why is it so easy to forget about Kaymer? Maybe it’s because a lot of these other young players have a bit more appeal. While Martin appears to be a genuinely nice guy, you can’t help but root for the McIlroys and Kims of the world.

Kaymer is just another quiet, solid player that could win six or seven majors before this is all said and done. Like I’ve written before, at this point, for a young player to win a major, they’re probably going to have to fall into it. There is so much pressure on the leaders as they head into the final day, that without the experience of a win at one of the big four, it is really tough to control your emotions.

Kaymer got lucky at the PGA Championship, but if not for his solid play to end, he wouldn’t have been there to land in a playoff to begin with. His win just means he’s a step up on all the other young players, and he’s now a force in golf that won’t be going away anytime soon.

This is a golf blog, and we know you come here for news on that little white ball, but give us a second to report something about another round ball. Michael Jordan, basketball Hall of Famer and well-known golf enthusiast, has been named to his second Presidents Cup team as a vice-captain for Fred Couples in 2011.

Last year, Jordan was part of a winning squad that took home the cup — which pits Americans against an international squad — for the third straight time, and Couples, a good friend of Michael, decided to add him again.

Jordan is now 47, long retired from his athlete days, but is still involved in a lot of opportunities, including a majority ownership of the Charlotte Bobcats. Now, nobody can dog the way Jordan played basketball, he will most likely go down as the best ever, but as an owner, he’s left plenty to be desired. So, this raises a simple question: Should Jordan continue to put himself in these types of situations when the Bobcats continue to struggle?

Since MJ has been involved with the Bobcats, they’ve had one winning season, in 2009, and are 6-11 this season. Their roster gives them little chance to do much past the first round in the playoffs if they even make it that far, and that seems to be a trend that will continue. If you’re a Charlotte fan (all six of you), aren’t you perturbed when you see that Jordan again is going to partake in a golf event that, let’s face is, is more exhibition than exhilarating (and that’s not to say we don’t love the Presidents Cup, but it will always be second to the Ryder Cup)?

Maybe it’s a reason to let Jordan and Couples hang out a few times a year without much excuse. When Jordan played in the U.S. Open Challenge, Freddie caddied for him. I’m sure having friends around that understand competitiveness and can fire up a squad is helpful, and honestly, Jordan can do whatever he wants, but the Presidents Cup is in the middle of November next season, right when the NBA is heating up.

Wouldn’t the Bobcats rather have Jordan around firing them up rather than him being in Australia at some golf tournament? You’d have to think so.

With the epic Ryder Cup now fading in our collective rear-view mirrors, it’s now time for the Ryder’s oft-neglected little brother, the Presidents Cup, to take center stage. In 2011, Fred Couples will captain the United States against Greg Norman‘s non-European world squad. It’s a rematch, captainly speaking, of 2009, in which the United States threw a beatdown on the world.

And since you don’t mess with a hot hand, Couples will bring back his two vice-captains, Jay Haas and some other guy. You know Haas; nine PGA Tour wins and three senior majors, among his many other accomplishments. The other guy — fella by the name of Michael Jordan — is a more curious choice, as he can barely break 80. It’s a choice that’ll surely meet with some controversy in Charlotte, but hey, whatever works, right?

On the International side, Norman selected Frank Nobilo, now best known as a Golf Channel commentator but for a brief period a legit threat in golf. Norman has indicated that he’ll name his other vice-captain next year, and it’ll be a non-golfer who’ll match up with Jordan. (I vote for Allen Iverson. Or Jordan’s ex-wife’s lawyers. Or any Double-A level pitcher from the early ’90s.)

The tournament takes place next November. Mark your calendars now!