Daniel Chopra played 132 PGA TOUR events without winning. The Swede then won two of his next three starts, including last week at the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. But as the first full-field PGA TOUR event of 2008 nears, that's not the most surprising thing to our Grant Boone.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

First off, in all fairness, you should know Roger Clemens is recording your reading of this column to play back at a press conference next week in his desperation to prove he's never taken steroids.

Speaking of balls dropping, 2008 is off to a festive start, beginning in New York where the year began with the 100th anniversary of the giant orb descending upon Times Square. That was followed by Britney Spears descending upon Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles via ambulance. Spears' annual nervous breakdown prompted a pair of unusual announcements: first, Dick Clark Productions unveiled its new show for next December 31 -- Britney Spears' New Year's Bloated Eve!; and second, Spears' intermittent encounters with reality have led a number of southern California rehab centers to seriously consider installing a drive-thru window. Stay tuned.

The year began in newly-wedded bliss for actress Katherine Heigl, who a couple of weeks ago exchanged Knocked Up-tials with singer/songwriter Josh Kelley, my occasional golf partner who currently holds the distinction of being my only MySpace Friend (click here) to marry someone from Grey's Anatomy. (Note to the other female members of Anatomy: one of my other 13 Friends, Jason "Big Daddy" Dorris, was recently voted Most Eligible Bachelor at the Hunter's Lane High School 20-year reunion. Act now before it's too late!) Personally, I don't know what Heigl and Kelley see in each other: she's only Hollywood's hottest two-screen star (silver and small); while the uber-cool Kelley can play every instrument including the pan flute and penny whistle, has his fourth album -- Special Company -- coming out next month, and for grins has become an accomplished painter. But I mean other than that.

In politics, the Presidential primary season began not at a primary but the Iowa Caucuses. "Caucus" is a word of Native American origin that literally translated means "do we really have 10 more months of this?" Attempting to become the first U.S. President to be named after a sporting good, Mitt Romney hammered home his message of fiscal responsibility by spending $17 million of his own money for a pair of second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Apparently, $17 million doesn't buy what it used to. The best line from the campaign trail so far came from Hillary Clinton earlier this week. The morning after a debate among Democratic candidates, Clinton said, "Last night, I think we saw there's a clear choice between doers and talkers." And just how did she supposedly prove she's a doer? By talking about what a doer she is.

This is what happens when you let women vote. Next thing you know, they want to go to college, then have their own careers, and eventually run for office.

Whoops. That was my inner Kelly Tilghman talking. I'm sorry. You know, the stress of writing this column gets to me sometimes. (Pause. Swallowing lump in my throat.) Okay, I'm better. On to South Carolina!

Meanwhile, golf's two leading candidates for Player of the Year, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, rang in the new year by celebrating their time-honored tradition of skipping the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. They each claimed they wanted to "spend the holidays with their families." More likely, they were ducking Daniel Chopra, who followed up his maiden title in the penultimate tournament of 2007 with a win at Kapalua last Sunday. To see Chopra's highlights and tips, click hair. If you want to see more than his fancy coif -- like video of him defeating natural blonde Steve Stricker Sunday at Kapalua -- click here.

After finishing the season in Florida last November, Chopra packed his bags for tournaments in Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand. With barely any time to de-pack, Chopra headed to Hawaii where he snagged his second title. His is a classic tale: boy meets girl, boy and girl have baby boy in Sweden, baby boy's family moves to India when he's 7, boy stays in India with extended family to play golf and cricket, boy turns pro, boy hits golf ball off Great Wall of China, boy meets girl from Australia, boy falls in love, boy and girl marry, boy dyes hair whitish blonde, boy and girl come to America, boy goes winless in first 132 Tour events, boy wins two of next three. I've seen it a million times.

Now, Chopra tries to make it three out of four in the first full-field event of 2008. For the first time in five years, the Sony Open in Hawaii won't feature the Islands' once-favorite daughter Michelle Wie (who strained her back carrying around a large monkey for the last two years) but will include pint-sized Polynesian Tadd Fujikawa, who made the cut there last year the week after turning 16. This is also the first rodeo for a new batch of Tour rookies, headlined by golf's newest Can't Miss Kid, 20-year-old Aussie Jason Day. At 18, he made the cut in five of the seven Tour events in which he was invited to play. Last year at 19, he became the youngest player to ever win a Nationwide Tour event and finished fifth on the 2007 money list to punch his ticket to the big leagues.

Day's a Tiger Woods Starter Kit: stupid length, brilliant short game, pure putting stroke, a flair for the dramatic, and a megawatt smile. He even has a matching multi-ethnic heritage (Australian, Filipino) and, like Tiger, a maturity beyond his relatively few years. Woods' precociousness came from his military dad, who was able to teach his son mental strength while keeping the game fun. Day's mettle stems, in part, because he lost his father to cancer as an 11-year-old. Struggling to find his way after his dad's death, Day found an instructor and a surrogate father in Colin Swatton at Hills International Golf Academy in Queensland. The two are inexorably linked by Swatton's own father dying of cancer the same year Day's did. They remain a team here in the U.S. with Swatton serving double duty as coach and caddy. Maybe it's a little easier to keep lipouts and the occasional double bogey in perspective when you've been through what those two have endured together.

Tommy Gainey begins his PGA Tour career with less hype than Day but an equally thick accent. The South Carolinian known as "Two Gloves" because he plays with both hands covered won GOLF CHANNEL's Big Break VII, then earned a Tour card by advancing through all three stages of Q School. He makes Boo Weekley look like a Kennedy, but Gainey's got game, if not confidence in crunch time. Last year at the Nationwide Tour's BMW Charity Pro-Am, Gainey parlayed a sponsor's exemption into a spot in Sunday's final pairing, only to shoot 77 and prompt my GOLF CHANNEL colleague Jerry Foltz to quip, "The gloves are on, but the wheels are off." Gainey shot the same number on the last day of Q School but hung on for a 19th-place finish and that coveted card. I'm pulling for Gainey. The Tour could use more like him.

As Roger Clemens' tape recorder keeps rolling, let's hope the good times in 2008 do, too.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, broadcaster, and journalist based in Texas. An archive of his columns can be found here. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.