It’s “Silly Season” in America, that Thanksgiving-through-Christmas golfing extravaganza featuring a parade of utterly pointless, made-for-TV events that not a single person I know ever tunes in for. First we had the timelessly plastic Skins Game, this year featuring world number three Phil Mickelson and three players (K.J. Choi, Stephen Ames and Rocco Mediate) with not a single Major championship – and an average World Ranking of 40.3 – between them. This event might offer some real excitement were it actually a skins game (i.e. the players putting their own money up) but as it stands now, its peak of drama likely came with Tom Watson accusing Gary Player of cheating during the inaugural 1983 edition. It’s been flatly soporific – though, I suppose, not altogether bad for digesting Thanksgiving dinner – ever since.

[Aside: We’ll refrain from recounting the rest of these nonsensical events, save to mention that so long as the Skins is followed on the docket by this past weekend’s Del Webb Father/Son/Cousin/Family Friend Challenge, it can be marketed as the game’s Fifth Major championship and not seem ridiculous...]

But anyway...

The point of this rant is that while American professional golf sleeps (surely having nightmares about potential sponsorship problems in a tanking economy), two important tournaments will be taking place literally on the other side of the world – though, sadly, with only limited player support beyond several of each events’ more prominent native sons.

The first of these is the Australian Open, a revered national championship which has been contested since the Honorable Michael Scott, a hugely talented English amateur, claimed the inaugural title at the old Australian Golf Club in 1904. Scott would win a controversial second Open win in 1907 (a dispute regarding his teeing a ball up outside the markers during the third round actually being resolved remotely – over several months – by the R&A) before men like Carnegie Clark and another great amateur, Ivo Whitton, took control of the event (winning a combined seven times between them) prior to 1930. More significant, however, was the victory of Gene Sarazen at the Metropolitan Golf Club in 1936, for while natives like Ossie Pickworth, Jim Ferrier, Norman von Nida and, of course, Peter Thomson would all enjoy great Open success, Sarazen’s triumph paved the way for foreigners to begin regularly making the long winter journey Down Under. Indeed, how many national championships can claim Bobby Locke, Gary Player (seven times!), Jack Nicklaus (six times), Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson among its winners?

Sadly, beset by financial problems and a holiday season place on the schedule, the Open will this year be played in relative obscurity (at least outside of Oz) by a field hardly befitting such a venerable championship. Thankfully, Australia’s top native sons are largely showing their support, with American PGA Tour stars and world top 50s Geoff Ogilvy (11), Adam Scott (16), Robert Allenby (27) and Stuart Appleby (37) all returning home for the occasion. But the foreign contingent is notably light, with South African Tim Clark and Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke headlining a paltry list – a group which includes exactly two Americans with meaningful PGA Tour experience, the ever-wandering John Daly (who has now literally reached the ends of the earth in search of sponsors exemptions) and, inexplicably, veteran Paul Goydos.

It’s a classy, time-honored event, played at a fine international venue (the Royal Sydney Golf Club).

It deserves better.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, the Alfred Dunhill Championship (aka the South African PGA) represents a major event on the Sunshine Tour schedule and, perhaps more importantly, the first of three consecutive South African tournaments co-sponsored by the European PGA Tour. The tradition of Europe’s best (particularly the British) venturing to the Cape for winter golf is a long one, and the E Tour’s co-sponsorship of the Dunhill, next week’s South African Open, and the relatively new Joburg Open, should be enough to guarantee significant foreign support. But alas, the list of non-Africans teeing it up this week, though not overly short, is largely devoid of genuine stars, with only Lee Westwood, Northern Ireland’s young Rory McIlroy and, arguably, England’s Simon Dyson and Sweden’s Johan Edfors, holding any major current place on the international scene. More disappointing, however, is the fact that not one of South Africa’s five world top 50s (Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, Rory Sabbatini, Tim Clark or Retief Goosen) will be at Mpumalanga, and that is a very sad state of affairs indeed.

Nonetheless, both the Australian Open and the Alfred Dunhill do offer a bit of winter golf in exotic (to Americans) locales – and should be considerably more relevant than the Merrill Lynch Shootout, Greg Norman’s Florida exhibition event, and this week’s offering on the PGA Tour’s holiday season cavalcade of stars.