John Holmes's blog

Today has been a bittersweet Sunday in our house. For one thing, it's the final day of the NFL regular season, which means the last day of my wife's favorite TV show – the NFL Red Zone. I can't help but chuckle at how much she loves it, even as I'm frowning over how my home-state Houston Texans nuked my chances of winning this final week of the office football pool.

Over in the "lead story" area of PGA.com, I have just posted a column by Dave Tindall of the British wire service PA Sport in which he looks back on 2012 and offers up his picks for the top 10 moments of the season just past. I don't agree with all of his choices, but I posted his piece because Europe had such a big year and it's always fun to see what people from different vantage points have to say about the big happenings in our sport.

Not to get all TMZ on you or anything, but tennis star Caroline Wozniacki showed up in Australia this morning with a big new diamond ring on her left ring finger. That has sparked plenty of speculation that she and Rory Mcilroy might have gotten engaged.

Wozniacki, who is playing in the Brisbane International as a warm-up to the Australian Open, had the ring on at the airport and as she prepared for her afternoon practice session at the Queensland Tennis Centre, according to the Australian Associated Press, but took it off before she played.

Everyone who's been paying attention lately knows that the golf industry is trying hard to grow the game – meaning, essentially, increase the number of people participating in golf. But, the National Golf Foundation wondered, do the people who already love golf want more company out there on the course? Or do they prefer not having to share the fairways with so many other folks?

We don't really have pachinko parlors here in the United States, but they're huge in Japan. Pachinko parlors there gross around $378 billion a year, according to the Japanese government – that's about four times the gross of all the world's legal casino gaming combined.

I know some of you lucky ducks out there found brand-new golf clubs under the tree on Christmas morning, and I'm sure the're awesome. I'm also sure they're not as awesome as this one.

This is the world's largest golf club, as of 1933 -- I ran across it the other day while searching for something else.

In the Palm Beach area of Florida, where so many many professional golfers live these days, no players have larger profiles than Jack Nicklaus at the Bear's Club and Greg Norman at the Medalist Golf Club. But no longer.

I know what I want for Christmas. I'd bet you know what you want, too.

But what do the world's greatest golfers want Santa Claus to bring them? Over at Bleacher Report, Jake Mann puts on his thinking cap – is it red, with a little white ball on top? – and ponders what the game's top players are hoping to find under their trees come Christmas morning.

Soon after arriving in Hawaii on Saturday, President Obama kicked off his Christmas vacation with a round of golf at Kaneohe Klipper, an 18-hole championship golf course on the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay, according to The Hill newspaper, which noted that Obama has played there before on past Christmas vacations.

The OneAsia Tour will hold not one but two final-stage Q-School tournaments early next year – with one in the United States and the other in Malaysia.

The U.S. Q-School will take place at the Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms, in Industry Hills, Calif., on Jan. 29-Feb. 1. The Malaysian event will return to Sutera Harbour Golf Club in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, on Feb. 5-8.