Fans get fantasy fixes from the PGA Tour.

• Position: SPORTS

Byline: Josh Bousquet COLUMN: FANTASY SPORTS The presents are opened, the tree's taken down, the little lights no longer shine and the table's been filled with nothing but leftovers for a week. It's holiday hangover time. Not that any of those other things bother me, but with the end of fantasy football goes another pastime and this one infuses me with more melancholy and nostalgia; it means I'll have to work harder to come up with material for this column until spring training begins. But wait, what's this? People get paid to play golf? The PGA season begins in Hawaii? This allows the players to take the course in January? Next week is already January? There are even various fantasy games designed to take advantage of this? Who knew? That sounds like as good a time-passer as any other. One could pass a good deal of time playing these games, as well, since there are even a few different approaches in the world of fantasy golf. Yahoo.com offers the most straightforward brand of competition. One starts a foursome of golfers each week and gets awarded points based on their performance; the points are determined by how many shots behind the leader one finishes. If that strikes one as not involved enough to make golf enjoyable, travel to ESPN.com. That site offers a "best ball" approach to its fantasy links competition. Just like Yahoo, an owner selects a foursome for the week, but scores are tallied by taking the lowest score of that foursome on each hole and adding them up for a final team total. Wait, what's that you say? The game play sounds slightly more interesting, but it doesn't address some other, more important topics? You still think that one could master the game by picking the best players, that there's no deep strategy involved? Well, fear not. I'm not the only one omniscient enough to hear you ask questions stimulated by my writing before it's even printed. Powerful psychics are also employed by the powers that be at pgatour.com and they have the further power to do something about it. Their Web site features a PGA fantasy game based on a salary cap, forcing one to delve into the depths of more fringe players, like Dicky Pride and Kris Cox, both of whom pgatour.com assures me are not adult film stars. Now I hear the PGA-philes out there snickering and rattling off the career stats of Pride and Cox, berating the tiny fantasy writer who knows nothing of the intricacies of their sport. Just be quiet and stay out of my head, please, I'm trying to...